The Fall of Eastern Europe

There was a lot of dust in the air that day I walked into the library and met my demise. It filtered through the shafts of sunlight, floating down and to the left, as it was carried on mysterious drafts between the unventilated stacks. I remember the specks shined brighter than the daylight, and brighter than the reflection of the light off the lake beyond the windows, and brighter than the incandescent bulbs in the ceiling above. Each was a little globe of white.

Was the dust from shed fingerprints of patrons paging through each book? Was I inhaling the thin, translucent covering of a thumb as I walked towards the end of the aisle? An ex-epidermis of a ring finger? I found myself holding my breath at the thought.

That is, until I realized I wasn't going to exit the building or its tainted air anytime soon.

My assigned desk was on the fourth floor of the library. It was amidst the Eastern European humanities selection. No one ever ventured to those stacks except myself. The solitude was most welcome, and most anticipated after arduous hours instructing infant medical minds in the theory of system integration.

The workspace was not visible anymore. After seven weeks, the formica desktop had grown a thick blanket of collated journal articles, white pads of paper, thick books by intense German men, and used Kleenex. In between the stacks and sheets, were napkins from the cafe downstairs. The little paper squares were decorated with the stick-form branched structures of antibiotic compounds, in full bloom with hydoxyl and methyl groups. Some showed skeletons capped at each turn by a blob of electrons. A graveyard of drained, inkless black pens laid in straight lines at the back of the desk, near the pull cord for the harsh fluorescent desk light.

The site of such a clutter raised my ire. I was disappointed at my own messiness, but I never straightened up or threw out useless literature. In some way it represented my industrious approach to thesis work. And in every other way it exposed my lack of focus.

It happened that as I was putting down my bag and cup, I reached for the ball chain under the light. With the flood of the blue-white bulb, I felt a sharp sting on the back of my hand. I brought my hand instinctively up to my chest, folding it protectively in my left palm. There was no movement or sign of danger on the desk, but when I looked down to examine, I saw two clean holes between my first and second knuckles. I bent again to look up at the bottom of the light, but immediately felt dizzy, sickeningly dizzy. I squinted my eyes closed against the rising pain and panic, but it didn't help. I tried a deep breath, forgetting the decades of dust I was inviting in. I tried to call to anyone, but I couldn't speak. I remembered no one was there anyway. The realization that I'd waited too long to start running brought a dull roar in my ears.

I remember I fell, and I sprawled out on my back. And as time slowed down, and down, slower, I saw the particles of dust stretch out as they flew by. They grew tails of light. Like watching a meteor shower.
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Eros' LaPA Tundra

In a strange state of mind today. I think I'm tired? And my cycle is whacked out apparently, by about 9 days. Maybe I'm being exhausted by a constant sense of deja vu, which has to do with the fact I've been in a pseudo-Columbia town this weekend. I can not tell you how much Lancaster, Pennsylvania reminds me of our baby CoMO, now that I've had time to walk around and see the LaPA district. It's been surreal at times. I half-expect to walk around the corner and run smack into Lakota.

Additional reminders of better times are provided courtesy of my esteemed companion and perfect host, EJ. We've been so comfortable, it's also a tidbit surreal. If Lucy was here, it'd totally remind me of college and my hang time with Jeremiah. EJ is totally different from Jer, though. EJ is a phenomenal artist, an illustrator of the highest cut and caliber. Last night he kicked off his gallery show at the Freedom Gallery as part of First Friday. It's a beautiful exhibit, and he has an incredible vision of eye-catching composition and color. (I hope he doesn't mind I've linked images for this post... eep!)

These are amazing hand-inked digital prints (my two favorites) that were inspired by Of Montreal's "Eros' Entropic Tundra" (above) and The Flaming Lips, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon" (below). The boy has sensational taste in music. To see these pieces up close and personally, they are just so detailed, so intricate. Which is perfectly representative of EJ's overall aesthetic. I spent about five hours hanging at the gallery with him last night, while people moseyed in and out. Every time I looked closely at a piece, taking time to look at the foreground or background, I swear, I saw something new. Some new bit of genius. It's just brilliant.


EJ has been fantastic. A fabulous sir to spend time with. We can't stop smiling. And lauging... so much laughing. I love that we're unstoppable. We volley references like it's second nature, batting around pop culture until we die laughing. Movie quotes, song lyrics, common idioms, web references, all offer a crop of brand new inside jokes. I could see this going somewhere great. I just don't want to burn it out. I really do not want to burn it out.

I was supposed to be back in Philly by now, but... EJ changed my mind this morning. And now it's snowing across Pennsylvania anyway, so it's even better to stay camped out under this blanket and watch football while the flakes start sticking outside, and wait for EJ to get back from work. My biggest concern now is overstaying my welcome. Although I just can't resist one more night of snuggling with my sweetie in this beautiful house.
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All Aboard

There is so much going on in my brain right now. MAN.

Like my desk, my stack of mail, and the dishes in the sink, my thoughts are all kinds of scattered. There are so many trains of thought, my head is like an Amtrak station. Destinations are like this:

1. Now
2. Then
3. Down the road
4. Back then
5. Whyville

Frankly, it seems like the final stop for all of those trains is Whyville.

I really need to sit down and write. But there's grant writing, CD4 Cre cellularity, LCMV SLP-76 paper writing, a certain gallery opening on Friday night, books I really need to return after I magically finish reading them, and a million other things on my list to do. Not to mention Christmas. Jesus.

Time to regroup, time to reroute, time to break it down... time time, time time, time time, click-clack, click-clack, click-clack... chooo chooo.... Read More.

30-second rant

I'm supposed to writing my grant, but I have to vent for a hot second.

I've been sitting in this coffeehouse for, oh, five hours, sitting in a prime counter-viewing location. In this time, I have seen six guys be super sweet to their girlfriends. Even just in placing his hand on the small of her back while she's looking at the menu at the counter. All of them have subtly hugged the girls closer and kissed them on the forehead while waiting for their orders. Every time I have found myself clenching my jaw and glowering a little bit.

I don't know what bothers me more. That I don't have someone who will do that, or that I've been fucking counting.
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Northern Hemisphere

I.
It's foggy and cold outside again. Halfway around the world, in a land where there's no such thing as "fog" or "cold", Dubai World just crashed. The United Arab Emirates is finally feeling the pinch of the economic downturn that has inched the Dow lower and lower for the past one and a half to two years. They're liable for about sixty billion dollars, approximately, to all their creditors. And already, they're asking for a sixth month reprieve from paying back debts (with interest). I wonder if the enthusiastic Dubai engine slows to an idle, what will happen to the worldwide money machine.

II.
While walking home tonight, late--very late, I realized how much time I spend up in my head. Strolling out of the hospital complex, I had an out-of-body sensation to be in my body. Literally, since I've stopped working out, I've lost contact with my body again. I keep forgetting what it's like to be an active, capable human being. Instead, I feel like a brain wired to a laptop, 24/7. I've been tracking how much time I spend on a computer of any kind in a week, and it adds up to be more time than I spend sleeping, eating and showering, combined. I'm all eyeballs and fingers, hardwired to an internet addiction. In that gross sum of laptop-time, I'm up in my own head, aware of only what is being digitally expressed to me. It's depressing that all my energy is trafficked specifically to the northernmost 5% of my body. What happens south of the border anymore? Are all my muscles atrophied and vitamin-deficient? How long would it take to reopen trade routes with those distant regions?

III.
I spent about fifteen hours at work today, and twelve of those, I spent thinking, writing, planning, researching my grant for the 607 grant-writing course. The only time I moved was to go to the bathroom or to go for a cigarette. For hours, I wrote and edited and rewrote. My little fledgling grant grew from 12 sparse pages to a solid 16, more jam-packed with figures and rationale than before. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't the assignment that was due at midnight two days ago. Actually, I was supposed to write the second half of the experimental design section and submit. But the more I'm thinking and reading, the more I realize my second specific aim is pretty flimsy. So now I need to turn the last 20% of my grant on its ear and look for new answers. Pioneering new science is never easy; if it was easy, everyone would do it. I need to dig up the energy to head west into the wild unknown of my mind, and daydream up some brand new sphere of cellular models where I can act out my science fantasies.

IV.
There is a certain color I associate with every number. I think it originates from a toy I had as a very young child. I couldn't tell you what this toy was anymore, but it has shaped the way my brain is wired in a completely concrete way. 1 is maroon, 2 is red, 3 is orange, 4 is blue, 5 is yellow, six is green, seven is light blue, eight is purple, 9 is dark green, 0 is black. This has been my brain for my entire adolescent and adult life. When I think of a phone number, I see color patterns. My cell phone number right now is full of red for example. This is how I remember numbers so well, I think. If thinking with the left half of your brain is logical and mathematical, and thinking with the right hemisphere is intuitive and artistic, where does my ingrained sense of colorful digits fit in? Somewhere in the northern hemisphere, I suppose.
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Recurring Dream

Ok, I have to tell you about this dream I've had for years. At least ten years. It has developed, little by little. But it follows the same story each time.

It's not an easy dream to describe, but I've drawn images from it. I know it so well. I can see it even when I'm awake.

In the dream, I've been watching the weather, and I know there is a storm coming. A big front. I'm trying to get people to safety. Usually it's my dream family, not my actual parents or sisters. There is ALWAYS a time when I see a microburst, and a space behind it. Behind the microburst wall, there is a lighter place. Then another whorl of wind and clouds.

It hits us, with major winds, like a wall. We are always outside for this, somehow. We all huddle down, buffeted. I know the space behind the burst is there, so I don't panic. Then it gets cold when the darker wind and clouds hit, and I always say, "Feel that front, there's the cold front moving through." I'm always in awe of it. Just as I am when a front really does move through in my waking life.

Each time I say, "Well, maybe that was it then." And I begin to think that the front was a passive one, and there will not be a turbulent change of weather after all.

At this point, I always look up and to the west, and see the dark, dark sky, spreading in all directions, as far as I can see. (Which is uncommon in real life, since a front is usually not that big--just a line of squalls.) I see the storm coming forward on the plains of the horizon, appearing to move slowly from that distance. I start to plan, pushing the panic underneath.

It's my job at this point to direct a smallish group of people where to go to safety. I try to think of a central location, away from windows, where they can be together for warmth and comfort. Most of the time, to get to whatever location I'm thinking of, we have to go through a mall and/or an airport, up escalators and down ramps, and up ramps inside tubes with clear plexiglass windows, and downstairs to get to a street. This street is busy, but it has a sidewalk on both sides. Only one side is the sidewalk that can go all the way. The other side is not the way to go, and we have to cross the traffic if we walk down that side. Crossing the street is somehow always a debacle.

In the dreams where we are in a city, I get to the top of the ramp, inside the tallest tube, before the stairs down to the street, and I look out the plexiglass window, and I see seven tornadoes. Three on one side, four on the other. Three are closer and four are farther. They are a lighter gray than the sky. They are skinny. They squirm under the velocity of their own force.

In other dreams, I see these tornadoes, across Missouri plains. Or coming across the hills of the Ozarks. Or coming south, down around the hills near my house in St. Louis. It is always a concurrent terror and fascination. I spend too much time looking at them, I think. And then I start running or driving away, urging or straight-out carrying people with me.

In each dream, I manage to get people to a place, altogether. Although it's never the best place to be. Last night it was a house with tall windows on every wall. Beautiful, but deadly in a storm. I am always forced to exclude one person from the group, forced to stay outside. I feel nothing really when I do this because it's a person I've already deemed an asshole.

Last night I had to refuse two people, though, and one was a little girl. It bothered me on every level. Her father was a fucking douche bag, though. A burly man, self-righteous and impudent. Dismissive of the storms coming, and only wanting shelter because he wanted to harass people. He keeps the girl with him and won't let her come in.

A daughter held hostage by her father's own arrogant conviction that he knows what is best.

I woke up before the storms hit the house last night, although that's not always the case. Sometimes I'm there with my arms around people, pushing them into a tighter group with our heads down, when the first tornado hits. There were some dreams where it was one after another, for dream-hours. I never cry. I never scream. I never lose it.

I wake up, and I feel so tired and hot, as if I had actually just outrun the tornadoes. I'm always left wondering what I would do if I was really in that situation. This morning I was left wondering if I yell out during the dream, or talked in my sleep when I'm dreaming of directing people. Because when I woke up, I realized I was not in the privacy of my own room, but instead, still on a sofa in Delaware.
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Wish List

The annual Christmas exchange is gearing up already. My family likes to get a move on. This year I'm heading up the secret santa organizing, although in my haste to make sure everyone knows how to participate, I forgot to make my own Christmas list.

I have a usual set of things that I'm happy to receive every year. Usually the latest Best American Short Stories edition, and any Best American Mystery Stories, Science Writing, Essays, or Nonrequired Reading editions. Seriously, for those of you who have not picked up the Best Americans, just go look through one at your local bookstore of choice. Each series has an annual release, edited by someone new every year, which gives it a different flavor in each collection.

And, not to be isolationist, or exceedingly snobby, but in literature (at least in short fiction), where everything can be so one-sided in favor of international talent, it's refreshing to see the best brand new authors from the US mixed in with the old standby classic authors, like James Joyce, Francine Prose, Frances O'Connor, etc. Up and coming MFA kids from the Iowa workshop and from nationally acclaimed programs who submit work for publication in the New Yorker or the multitude of lit reviews (ie: Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Tin House) are pulled out of anonymity and placed on the Best American pedestal.

Wow, that was quite the tangent. I blame an excess of coffee.

There are a few other usual standbys for the Christmas list, but while thinking over what might be nice to see under the tree, my mind started to wander. So here, I'd like to post my actual wish list for Christmas 2009:

taller than me
broad shoulders
good teeth
dark hair
nice facial hair--I'm a sucker for beards
phenomenal hands--good fingers, dexterity
geeky, nerdy
ambitious
pursuing a serious career or goal
smart, common sense
considerate
empathetic
generous
witty
social extrovert, talkative
sense of humor
loyal, dedicated
while we're both talking to other people at a party, slips his hand into mine to still be near me, let me know I'm still on his mind
Between kisses, or when he looks down into my eyes, he clenches his jaw, like it's too sweet for him--makes me melt when that happens
wants a wife who is also his partner, on the same team
a strong man, holds his ground, likes to take the lead
wants a family, stability
has an epic libido
loves art and expression in all its forms
likes music, going to see bands he's never heard of before
liberal
likes that I'm a science geek
likes to debate
makes time for me
doesn't smoke pot (anymore or at all, whichever)
likes hoppy IPA craft beers
likes to travel a LOT, and wants a travel buddy
has manners, respects elders
understands the importance of being aware of current events and keeps up
loves women
doesn't have road rage
pitches in to help anyone, anytime
loves people
loves kids
likes to read
fair, just, equal
responsible with money (important)
can appreciate having his space, and giving me space
has a lot of other friends, outlets, (ie: his own life)
both big spoon and little spoon

I'm... assuming these can be found... somewhere. I've already checked the local spots, and some places on the internet. Feel free to get him gift wrapped and shipped overnight. :)
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