Well. I spent the evening (last night) with my father, who introduced me to his girlfriend and treated us to dinner at Mi Ranchito (it was yummy).
There were a number of reflective moments (!), a fair amount of joking, and basic information sharing. I learned more about the details of the automobile accident last year, that they thought dad's spleen had ruptured and almost took it out, they almost didn't let Shirley in to see him, etc.
Both of them are a trip. Separately and together. Austin took us on the scenic route to Waid's for breakfast that just happened to take us by GameStop where the new release of DOA 4 awaited. :-) I really enjoyed watching him play last night, shifting between female and male characters and winning every single game. He explained a lot to me. Very interesting discourse involved with gaming. I asked Alec last night about whether he felt himself thinking in the ways of the games during his real life. "It doesn't make me violent, if that's what you mean." No, that wasn't where I was going. (Obviously he's aware of that interpretation.) He's articulate and concise: you don't solve problems in real-life like you do in the game. I know. What I meant was, there are parts of the games - especially the commercial elements - that are quite optimistic. They point toward possibilities. Austin acknowledged this: some things are just cool, but part of what makes them cool is that they demonstrate potential.
Jesus Evil Kachina tells me one ought to communicate only that which rises to the top.
I arrived in KC to surprise my nephews and sister-in-law. Dad had a few hours warning. :-) The youngest's eyes just about popped out of his head when I told him who I was. Yes, it's been that long. I'm getting lessons in PSP, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 (Alec scored a perfect 100 tonight on Captain Jack), Halo (Gamertag SS4 Shinobi), and Dead or Alive Ultimate (Austin is in the top 100 worldwide).
I'm planning on downloading Full Metal Alchemy once I've finished this trip; got a bit of an explanation from the Jamester as I peered over his shoulder yesterday and was intrigued.
Little Brother calls during bowling (affection flows back). Blood brother suffers. Parental pathology is passed on. I dream randomly.
SEMP subjected me to the most intensive grilling I’ve yet received over the Informed Consent form for Reflexivity. :-) The beginning point was this “favorite sentence”:
The guidelines used for selecting material have to do with intrasubjectively-perceived salience in the moment,…
The individual words make sense, but what do I mean by stringing them together in this way? Most simply, what I mean is, “I decide”. Yet the consent form puts limits on this power. The different choices people make concerning their own consent establish certain conditions that I commit to operate within – each individual’s decision contributes to a structure of accountability for me. Why do I need to be accountable to others in this way? Why not just rely on my own personal integrity? Because any kind of integrity requires a supporting structure and I’ve had no other. The academic language adds (hypothetically) a precision that seeks to specify the rationale justifying the choices I make.
I’m quizzed about “public” and “private”. “There’s no such thing as privacy,” says Jesus Evil Kachina. Intersubjectivity theorists (whoever these might be, smile) agree: we all mutually co-construct each other through acts of calling (instead of/in addition to "mission", also identity: interpellation). In commonsense terms, one could say we do this through culture (norms, values, etc).
“I don’t know if I want to be a blog! “ A log? A bog? “It sounds like a glob.!” A lob?
You can pick your nose.
You can pick your friends.
But you can’t pick your friend’s nose.
Put that in your blog and smoke it!
~ SEMP
Jesus Evil Kachina tested me. Do you want world peace? I do. Are you at peace with yourself? Getting there. The last eight days, yes. Thank you.
While driving, I talked with Shemaya about gut feelings and the trick of learning to distinguish between the “gut” that’s reactive defensiveness and the “gut” that’s intuitive guidance. She explained “the enteric brain” to me (note especially the section on The Third Neurotransmitter: serotonin), which I hadn’t heard about before. We agreed it’s probably connected (somehow) to the biochemical pathways in the mind that channel consciousness.
make the most of each and every moment!"
I was awaken by the Dan-ism via walkie-talkie this morning. Jamie was delighted with himself. :-)
Had a mellow evening after my quick drive to see Ruth - realized I was kinda in a hurry. :-) In fact, realized I'm often in a bit of a rush.
No comma. That's what caught my attention. I anticipate where it is I want to be in emotional/relational terms and express it verbally a wee bit prior to its actually being true. I suspect this tendency makes me appear inconsistent (?), and/or even flaky. :-( The worst aspect is that it means I miss the soft pleasures of the moment; the best (I guess?) is that it pulls me toward my own growth.
Yesterday was wonderful. My being sang. :-) Shall I be chronological?
The conservatory filled me with memories: "Those who dwell...among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." ~ Rachel Carson. Among the biomes were a pair of blue and gold macaws and some lories. We tasted some fine old Chocolate, and learned quite a bit about the cultivation of cacao (40% produced in South Africa) and production of chocolate. Hershey's Kisses have been around since 1906! Tootsie Rolls were the first chocolate-type candy, 1896 (if I remember correctly). We watched electric trains circle the outside courtyard, admired a bizillion plants (I'm bad with names but one that stuck is the African Mask), and took in some art. Joyce Tenneson has some amazing photographs of flowers, doctored to appear suspended in black, velvety space. She's an author as well.
Shemaya sends genealogical information on a potential ancestor, Rockwell Kent (he's not). She marked a few passages in "The Voyaging life...", an article in the Jan/Feb issue of Ocean Navigator.
He engaged in vociferous political discourse in bars everywhere, often getting into fights; he was even tossed out of Newfoundland in 1915 - forcibly escorted to a ship by a government agent.
"Within an hour of the thought that I must go I had secured a clerk's berth on a freighter sailing for the farthest spot on the wild, far southern end of South America, of all lands that one hears or reads of, the most afflicted and desolate."
...Kent considered every adventure a success if it combined enough elements of disaster, companionship and physical exertions.
You don't think she was making any inferences about me, do you?
I leave in mere hours...
We made momo's at Lava's for hours last night, sipping beverages and chatting up a storm. P.D. and I talked blogging, who does one write about, how? He knew of some scene in NY where people would attend parties and then check each other's blogs the next day to see what had been written. I would enjoy something like that ... but why? I've been thinking about a comment someone recently made to the effect that being written about feels dehumanizing. I can imagine that. :-(
Sometimes when I'm writing I think of myself as a collector. Collecting experience, memories, connections. I like the idea of being a node through whom others can also maintain connection. It's not clear that many people consider reflexivity as a blog in this way, but it has always been my dream that what gets generated here becomes a kind of a 'community resource'. In the past couple of weeks, another reason for the way I blog has clarified itself for me: as social infrastructure.
Bring a camcorder ("The blog isn't enough?!) and Little Brother is unleashed! 181. Not quite a record; shy 6 pins from his all time high. "If not for those first two frames..."
I set just about an all time low, although I got a 'perfect' 100 in Game 2. Niru, by the way, had the magic touch on the slowest strikes I've ever seen. Zeynep beat me by 7.... then there were the usual erratic shenanigans from the spin dudes. No turkeys last night. :-(
Well, I have had fun the last couple of nights. Only got a wee bit confused when I called Broughton last night but dialed Cris instead... I did NOT have a hangover from those CAIPIRINHAS with the real CACHAÇA from Friday night's bash to celebrate Cris' acceptance into the Translation program. Nonetheless, it DID take about two minutes before I realized who I was talking with and why the conversation wasn't going the way I expected! Prior to going there I had dinner with some interpreters and Deaf friends I haven't seen in ages. That was cool. And last night I danced and chatted for hours with many of the bowling crew in an extended celebration of Anuj's birthday (I think he's going for a record...?)
The highlight, of course, was when I was dancing between two hot young Nepalese men. I won't tell you which one of them thinks I'm in my 60s. :-)
Dissertation ingredients assembled, are they to taste? Frosting comes last, and some day, a cake!
Anuj's 29th (!!) birthday dinner was fine until someone mentioned my birth in the 1940s. Actually, it remained delightful, espeically since we got to taste Romanian hospitality! And it was just as well someone's mom didn't speak English, as the spermatozoa comment just was not understood. (It would have been way too complicated to explain the semantic merger of "sinus" and its Nepalese counterpart.)
I received several directions regarding blogposts about bowling. They're a challenge to prioritize...there was DemonDon's sprint from the bar to a seated position at the foul line (resulting in a strike!), Lava's attempt to take out the competition by breaking Zeynep's hand after she scored a spare (and this after he let a backward throw nearly take out several people's toes), Chris' body english, and Little Brother's one point loss to yours truly again.
and disappears after a few short hours of active socializing - but hey! This part of me has been scarce in recent years, so who's complaining?
but the introvert has definitely 'won out' because I just accidentally lost a lengthy blogpost about language, humor, crossing lines (ref. George Carlin), and interpreting/translating. I'd summarized much of the wisdom Arturo shared with me tonight, including the statement that to decouple the economic system and its coded language from 'the rest' (cultural systems?) one must be crude: as crude, he said, as people will take and still accept it/you.
I continue to experience acting on the basis of intuition (rather than calculation), and worry (not always, but when I do its after the fact) that my judgment still needs honing. A friend admonished me last week not to make things so hard on/for myself and within days, what do I do? Cross a line. Make things hard(er). Yet, accompanying the spurt of uncontainment is a rush of energy and engagement, not to mention a good laugh at its sheer incongruity. :-) The critique still weighs on me however: do I seek to instigate something that's "not there" or is there an intuitive basis/justification (?) that condones acting out in order to bring into view something "there" but denied?
At any rate, Elizabeth's party was great fun and I enjoyed the company tremendously. Maria especially - she kept reminding me how unspecial I am. :-) Arturo, being humbly brilliant. Duncan, another modest guy. (I could take lessons, eh?!) Baris (sp?) and Deniz - more contacts for a possible life trajectory that sometimes appears and hovers in the mists of potentiality before my consciousness, and Ashley, a great conversationalist. :-) And that fondue! Yum!
Zeynep gets rowdy! She collected signatures to verify her score last night. Just think, if we double it, she almost beats Luscious! He only had one turkey last night. :-( But Anuj - the lucky guy - also broke the 110 point barrier, and Para-don? Well, the paradigmatic gringo is maintaining low standards in order to receive the adulation of stunned co-bowlers when he gets a strike. Lava's hard work and massive amounts of activity are getting to him... it's been awhile since his record-setting game of ... months ago? I'm still not sure it really happened... little brother got warmed up by the second game - 158, not too bad!
There were more newcomers, Joe, Magda... and the alley was absolutely packed. Busier than any other time I've been there.
It was intended as a joke, but ... we wouldn't be the only ones. NYU grad students have been on strike since November 9. That's some serious collective action.
The conference that will be hosted by graduate students of the UMass Communication Department is going to be awesome. :-) The info and CFP are extraordinarily well-prepared and the confidence and conviction of the planners compelling. Everyone should come. Submit, if you've got something relevant and plan to come no matter what, because this is gonna be one of those you'll wish you were at once it's over...
