Caveat: Welcome to Paradise, Corp.

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / The Wonders of Work

Keeping in mind that all names are being changed, to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the idiots, here is my world.

Basically, think "Dilbert" – but without all the glamor.

Paradise Corp is a fortune 500 company — over 50 years old, a "bricks and mortar" conglomerate. Paradise went public again in the most recent decade, after several decades as a privately held company, and — unofficially at least — is experiencing some shocks under the higher level of scrutiny that being a public corporation is subject to.

As a conglomerate, it has a number of unrelated divisions with very little in common between them, except perhaps a brand and a CEO — we're in "silos," to put it in consultantese. I work for a very autonomous, $1 billion+ annual revenue division in a specialized niche in the B2B services world.

We're one of about 5 national-scale players in an otherwise fragmented, regional and mom-and-pop industry, and, until a few years ago, we held a definitive lead, in both reputation and size. The recent economic downturn, changes in the industry overall toward "commodification" of our primary product, and some serious at-loss pricing from our competitors in order to gain market share, have all contributed to our recent bout of ill-health.

My loyalty to Paradise is based in the personalities that surround me — the organization as a whole hardly merits it. Although I've no concerns regarding the general ethical soundness of Paradise, it's hardly what I would call an exemplar of corporate excellence.

I've received some good breaks at Paradise, however, climbing from being a "temp" in the billing department through billing coordinator, programmer/analyst, and now data analyst and even "data strategist" (at least unofficially) in about 5 years — all without any help from my resume, which says I should be teaching high school or, at best, pursuing my PhD in literature.

Caveat: Guess what?

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

As I've stepped through the configuration process for my new weblog and some associated "typelists," I've had the sudden realization that I could use a books typelist to catalog my entire book collection. Sounds like a fabulous fun, e?

So, in no particular order, you will find my many books, pulled at random, from shelves and small piles around my little house. I'll try to include approximate date-of-acquisition, and to comment on at least the interesting ones (but isn't that all of them?).

Not that you, the putative reader, is anything but a figment of my imagination. But isn't that the point? I suspect most of the depth on this blog is going to end up in the comments I provide for my texts.

Caveat: And lo…

Banalities & Journaling

… it came to pass

that Jared decided to start a blog.

Is this a sign I have too much time on my hands?

A cross between:

1) a traditionalish journal ("dear diary…");

2) one of those yellow legal-pad thingies where I write down things from books and websites that I find interesting;

3) a semi-fictionalized account of nothing in particular.

Caveat: Retroblogging

Banalities & Journaling / Retroblogging

[Retroblogging.

I have deliberately placed this post on the day before the day that I actually started writing this blog. In actual fact, I'm writing this entry on 2010-11-28 (with updates in 2013).  It's a mysterious post-from-the-future! By this anachronistic act, however, I mean to introduce my grand, narcissistic project: retroblogging.

I realized, some time back, that the ability to back-date blog posts means that I could post to my blog back in time:  to times before I was blogging;  to times before there were blogs;  even to times before I was born.

The fact is, I have been journaling, on and off, in rather bloggy fashion, for a major portion of my life.  So one day, I had the epiphany that I could transfer the content of my paper journals to this blog.  Perhaps selectively.  But… autobiographically.

Several times, I've taken steps to try to "digitize" some of my old journals.  Before the "hard drive disaster of '98," I'd typed over 100 pages into a laptop. There's a certain narcissism inherent in this sort of project, I realize, but reviewing the past has a certain therapeutic value for me, and putting out into the online universe matches up well with my beliefs and feelings about the importance of living a sort of radical transparency – not as a prescription for others but for myself.

Not all the journal entries are equally suitable for placement online.  Some are, frankly, illegible.  Some are disturbingly banal, or downright incoherent.  A few are too private to put online, even for someone as radically transparent as I strive to be.  But there are lots of things I think I'd like to record.  This blog entry, here, will serve as a place to "explain" what these "retroblog" posts are about, that I can link to in a note at the bottom of those old posts.  The posts themselves will show up at the appropriate date, in the archives, through the use of the back-dating feature.

Here is a picture of some of my journals.  I carry several kilos of these green- or blue-ruled "comp books" with me from continent to continent.

Old Journals

I also tended to keep journals on those those yellow legal pad thingies – but over the years, those have decomposed into disorganized manila folders crammed with paper.  I carry those around, too.

All along, my approach has been not unlike the way that I continue to approach this blog.  The difference is that I was much less aware, for the most part, of a specific audience.  If I thought of an audience at all, it was most likely some mysterious future biographer.  Or simply my future self.  And, in fact, clearly, that latter future audience idea was exactly right.  But now… with some selectivity, I'm going to be putting dated entries here in blogtopia.

Dumping the many caveats of my life from my paper dumptruck.

I was most prolific during my last two years of high school and during my college years.  But there are interesting materials to be found for nearly every year, if I poke around a bit.  I doodled a lot.  I frequently experimented with my handwriting – sort of a private typography.  Almost always, I had some "language-in-progress" that I was trying to study, and just like today, I would jot down notes or lists of vocabulary.  I sometimes typed, using a manual typewriter, imagining something hemingwayesque, maybe.

Here are some images of pages from these past journals.

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Old Journals

Caveat: 2003

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I migrated again, with my employer, ARAMARK: I went into the Sales and Marketing department. I developed the infamous National Accounts Data Analysis (NADA) intranet site for my company on my own, and it was a huge hit. I was promoted and recognized for this. I reflected, ‘Failure in life…  success in business.’ I moved into the tiny house next to my dad’s on the hill in Highland Park. I took my first trip to Australia to visit my mother.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 2003 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 2002

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I rented a horrible apartment in North Hollywood. I lived alone, enjoying the company of my eccentric cat, Bernardo O’Higgins. All cats are eccentric. I was turning into the ‘loner-nerd’ I’d always worried I’d become. Work, however, was going well – workaholically, in fact. I developed a habit of working on Saturdays, and taking time off while at work to go to the infinityplex in Burbank a few blocks from work and watching a movie – so I watched a lot of movies.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 2002 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 2001

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

At my work at ARAMARK, I migrated from the finance department into the IT department. I started working as a programmer. I studied SQL programming and accounting, and combine these disparate fields into a pretty good understanding of my employer’s business model.  I took many long drives around Southern California. I accepted the fact that I was meant to be alone in the world. I deleted a novel I was writing from my computer in disgust.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 2001 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 2000

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

A programmer at my place of work becomes slightly famous for creating a non-Y2K-compliant application after January 1, 2000. In June, Michelle committed suicide. It was as if to say, ‘So there!’ or ‘Take that!’ That’s how suicide works. I worked hard at ARAMARK. I bought my Nissan pickup truck, which was the first and only time I ever bought a new car.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 2000 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 1999

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I started working at ARAMARK Corporation in Burbank, as a temp in the finance department. I proved sufficiently competent that they offered me a permanent position. Michelle and I occasionally discussed getting back together. We had long, drawn out, long-distance telephone conversations, her still in Philly and me in L.A. (well, Burbank). We both clearly had difficult-to resolve ‘issues.’ I told Michelle that I didn’t think it could work out.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1999 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: Decision Making

My Drawings & Paintings / Retroblogging

Journal Page Scan

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and added 2013-06-09  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?

I wrote this while among the dead. My paper journals from this period are precisely dated and have multiple entries from each day.]

Caveat: En-Ki-Du il grande

My Drawings & Paintings / Retroblogging

Journal Page Scan

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and added 2013-06-09  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?

I wrote this while among the dead. My paper journals from this period are precisely dated and have multiple entries from each day.]

Caveat: Voluptuosidad

Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable / Retroblogging

Muchisamuchi al lado – dos jovenes se aman, se besan, pero notablemente románticos y cariñosos en extremo.  Me da una alegría destacada.

Leyendo a Nietzsche:  "el sendero de nuestro cielo pasa por la voluptuosidad de nuestro infierno." (our path to heaven goes through our own hell´s voluptosidad.") p 252.

Nietzsche as first evolutionary philosopher, o sea that is the geneological approach, drawing on his own genio and Lamarck – Darwin, he forges a new historicism that is not just (or only) dialectic but systematic, in that it views history as a dynamic system of evolving objects:  men, cultural constructs, ideologies, etc.

"Quisiera dar y distribuir hasta que los sabios de entre los hombres volvieran a sentirse alegres con su locura y los pobres felices con su riqueza." p 256

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28.  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?  The above was written one afternoon, after work.  Probably in a Starbucks.  I was reading Nietzsche, in Spanish.]

Caveat: 10 ways of looking at a city bus

Banalities & Journaling / My Poetry & Fiction / Retroblogging

A sensuous mother’s hand strokes her daughter’s brown back, a sort of innocent, pure eroticism, unconscious, formless, concrete.

10 ways of looking @ a city bus (after W. Stevens which I just was reading)

1. A boy is kissed by his girl
@ a bus stop on Figueroa St.
By the taco stand. A bus pulls up.
And struggles away in a cloud of exhaust.

2. A child watches the red & yellow bus,
all angular, be-wheeled giant,
irrelevant to his life
He watches from the window.

3. Rural, inter-city county bus,
bound for the university
A column of eucalyptus trees flips past
College students look out at the lumber stacked in rows

4. 11 pm on Washington Blvd.
A man waits, stomping to stay warm
Almost dancing on the icy sidewalk
The 16A doesn’t come.

5. Two yellow and brown buses
careen down Avenida Insurgentes @ 2 am
their drivers are racing.
The passengers doze, or are drunk.

6. The newspaper headline says
the buses are overcrowded.
The state orders the transit authority to buy more buses
one man asks “Where’s the money going to come from?”

7. An old woman clambers onto a bus,
Somewhere along 6th Avenue – the 50’s, I think.
An impatient young man flicks his burning cigarette into the gutter
And reaches for the handrail to climb aboard.

8. Somewhere near St.-Germaine-des-Pres
a bus disgourges its passengers
The rich, intoxicating smell of diesel fumes
Still makes me think of Paris in January.

9. Accelarating passionately
the rural bus swings into opposing traffic
To pass a donkey cart
An old woman who boarded @ the mercado hugs her chicken protectively.

10. Sgt. Jones was impressed, when I knew
which bus to board – I decifered the hangul.
We went to the modern art museum
South of Seoul, amid luxuriant green trees.

I went to a meeting this morning – early, for the thing on deep ecology. I talked more than I expected. And after, two ladies & I talked about Quaker schools, & the decrepit situation @ Pacific Ackworth. No sé.

Yesterday, after counseling, where Jeffrey was the dominant subject, I drove to Pomona, walked around in the desolate desert, hot. Saturday morning ‘ closed. Decrepit 2nd tier urban core. Then I ate lunch at Dennys, which reminded me of Michelle and her cravings.

Then I came home. My pen ran out of ink the end…

[The “retroblogging” project:  this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2013-06-08.  I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back.  It’s a big project.  But there’s no time limit, right?

The above was written one Sunday afternoon – my journal entries of this time period were very precisely dated and time-stamped. I was probably in a Starbucks in Pasadena or another in downtown Burbank, or else a Java City location in Glendale I was hanging out at a lot during that period – I tended to migrate around these places depending on what other errands or tasks had me doing at the time.]

[UPDATE: I re-published the poem enclosed in the center of this post as poem #1799 of my daily poem series, on July 4th, 2021.]
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Caveat: 1998

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

Things began to break down with Michelle and I wasn’t doing very well with it. In August, we decided on a “trial separation,” but I wasn’t willing to  approach this methodically, and by September, I had quit my teaching job and I ran off (somewhat irresponsibly, I realize) to stay on my uncle Arthur’s land in Alaska. I cut trees and brush with a chainsaw (in the rain), and shoveled gravel (in the rain), and wrote a novel (sitting in a white van, in the rain). In November, I gave up on Alaska and on solitude, and I went to LA to stay with my father, who had recently divorced my stepmother of 21 years, whom I sometimes idolized. This was a very bad period for me, and so, closing out the year with a bang, I attempted suicide while parked alongside the Pacific Coast Highway north of San Simeon, and I nearly succeeded. I spent time in a mental hospital (the parallels with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are, um, disconcerting).
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1998 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: More! Zap!

Banalities & Journaling / Retroblogging

12/2 4:50  am Update – Wednesday.

Now on your second procedure [ECT]. The first was completed without problem on Monday. Yesterday (Tues) you were discharged from hospital, stayed at home with Phil. You will be starting the hospital program today after procedure.

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and
added 2013-06-09  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way
back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?

I
wrote this while among the dead. My paper journals from this period are
precisely dated and have multiple entries from each day.]

Caveat: A Letter to Myself

Retroblogging

3:45 am, Sunday, November 30, 1998.

Things to remember. You're at BHC Alhambra Hospital, under Phil's gentle advocacy. You've elected to undergo electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] in an effort to banish lifelong demons. You want to learn how to be happy. Mara and the rest of the family love you. She expects you to call. Michelle loves you, although you are now separated, probably permanently. Jeffrey loves you and wants you to stay alive. Slick Willie is still president, Russia's economy is collapsing, Pinochet is under arrest for crimes against humanity, a former pro-wrestler, Jesse Ventura ("The Body") has recently been elected governor of Minnesota, and an independent (Reform Party) candidate. You barely survived a suicide attempt on Nov. 17th, following your apocalyptic departure from Pennsylvania and your family on August 17th, and a stay on Arthur's land in Alaska over subsequent months. Brother Bob has been calling every other day since your arrival in this hospital – a real friend, forever. Your cat, Bernie O'Higgins, has perhaps forgotten you but is nevertheless an affectionate, loveable beast. The world is a complex, beautiful place, Robinson Jeffers and Pablo Neruda were great poets, Cervantes' novels are nested maps of 17th century Spanish social space: Don Quijote 1 maps Spain, Don Quijote 2 maps the map, and Persiles maps the utopian vantage point from which the first two maps are drawn. That was the germ of your never-embarked-upon Ph.D. thesis on Spanish Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Hang in there, people believe in you. Now: believe in yourself. You like to read, build sandcastles, view art, contemplate teh philosophical meanderings and layerings of Gilles Deleuze / Felix Guattari. You will return to the hospital this afternoon, and undergo a second treatment on Wednesday morning. Some of the patients on the unit, known as Thanatotopia, are decent people. Pedro Páramo is dead. Also, don't forget you're doing C-track – you might want to go.

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and
added 2013-06-09  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way
back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?

I wrote this while among the dead. My paper journals from this period are precisely dated and have multiple entries from each day.]

Caveat: Hospital Handouts

My Drawings & Paintings / Retroblogging

11/24

I got two handouts in group. One made me angry. I drew doodles and notes all over it.

Journal Page Scan

See what I added to the list? Number 13 is the step I'm on now.

Journal Page Scan

Here is the other one. I actually see use in this one. I copied it into my journal. Get it?

Effective Journaling

1) Pick an appropriate journal for you:
– One that you like
– Convenient for you
2) Schedule a routine time every day for journaling.
– But don't limit yourself to journaling at this time, journal also at particularly tough times.
3) Know the important journaling topics:
– Target areas
– Thoughts
– Feelings
– Physical symptoms
– Behavior
4) Review your journal to look for patterns
5) Make journaling fun!
– Reward yourself
– Use fun resources: Newspaper clips; Ticket stubs; Poems, song lyrics, etc.
6) Also journal about the positives
– Especially things that you've learned

Example:
– Cog. B. style

Situation / Thought / Emotion / Response / Emotion

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and added 2013-06-09  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?

I wrote this while among the dead. My paper journals from this period are precisely dated and have multiple entries from each day.]

Caveat: Obsesión en romance

Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / My Poetry & Fiction / Retroblogging

Verde, que te quiero verde,
Verdes ramas, cabello verde
— Federico García Lorca.
verde poeta que escribe
verde poema de amor
verde, dulce, sin sabor.
verde que no puede ver,
verde violencia boreal
verde nieve me cae un copo
verde. es agonía de mártir
verde: niñez de montaña
verde, y yace sobre tierra
verde y fango verde y lodo
verde. un caminante anda,
verde calor de alma sola y
verde, porque la mía sufre
verde, porque el aire que es
verde respira cabello
verde de amor. soledad
verde, invierno lluvioso y
verde, como animales
verdes. besos verdes. bailes
verdes. niño verde, niña
verde. el dios es ondulante y
verde. un mar, que es increíble y
verde… enojo… suicidio
verde, me tiro en frente de un
verde tren, tren rápido,
verde, oscuro, poderoso y
verde todavía. mátame,
verde, aplástame ya que yo –
verde – no quiero vivir.
verde es odio del verde amor.
verde es la revolución.
verde, que se desangra, roja y
verde. la odio. la odio tanto,
verde, como rojo, pero
verde, más bien es color
verde que me asalta la nariz,
verde como una máquina
verde y poderosa: el alma
verde. nos perdona la ira
verde, nos antagoniza:
verde faz completamente
verde, cara de sangre – la
verde sangre – de nuestra ira.
verde en el suelo que es
verde, escarcha de la estrella
verde del cielo porque la
verde redentora dice
‘¡verde muerte, verde vida,
verde muera, verde viva!’
verde ira, que nos enoja,
verde grito en la noche
verde pierde, raudamente,
verde sentido – concepto
verde – que conceptualiza un
verde signo: Verdenada. es
verde, nada, tras celeste y
verde infierno, pide fiera
verde, ¡oh, bestia!, come carne
verde y podrida. pudor
verde no perdonaría el
verde espíritu claro,
verde, ¿cómo conmover un
verde apocalipsis? ¿qué es
verde? es pérdida de amor
verde que me es personal,
verde, tan íntima. ¡huida
verde hacia retrobución!
verde me seduce tanto:
verde de roja madera
verde, aquel locus amoenus
verde, es un espacio aterior.
verde dentro verde. fuera,
verde, una mera sonrisa
verde… él vende el violento
verde viento, va, devora,
verde demonio, una momia
verde, que padece el amor.
verde estoy aquí esperando,
verde te espero sin nada,
verde, en el corazón mío.
verde, blanco y azul soy,
verde poeta con temor: el
verde enojo me controla
verdemente con verde ojo…
verde ojo: te odio todo.
verde es todo, resentido,
verde que es resentimiento,
verde que no es un dolor.
verde, oh, ¡verde!, ¡no me digas!
verde peso. verde sol.
verde idiota, no te quiero.
verde sube. verde baja.
verde héroe en ascensor:
verde bajando, subiendo, el
verde nos sube, bajando.
verde no nos puede ver,
verde no ve verde nieve: es
verde, o sea, que me dice esto:
‘verde vida vale nada.’ el
verde enojo duele tanto,
verde dolor, ¡la alienación
verde no implica valor! es
verde espacio, aterior.
verde magia. verde amor. la
verde pregunta no tiene
verde calor, no responde
verdemente, no responde. es
verde salida: un razor
verde… como mi dios.
verde es existencialismo,
verde captura la guerra. el
verde suprime un vector de
verde escape mayor, porque
verde no me es nada más que
verde. no quiero saber el
verde nombre, tetraletra
verde, diagrama letal:
‘verde, verde, verde amor.’
verde es un cuerpo sin órganos
verdes, veo como película
verde. verde joder, o hacer pajas,
verde coño con coñac,
verde verga rosada de un
verde ojito singular y
verde, me escupa semén
verde y blanco. no tolero
verde, es reinvindicación.
verde es todo un universo
verde, peregrino soy –
verde – y me identifico con:
¡verde abismo, verde caos,
verde desesperación!
verde demonio locuaz,
verde con conocimiento
verde, y con olvido audaz.
verde y rojo, desconexos.
verde reina y verde rey.
verde… sé que ideología es
verde, y que encapsula
verde vegetal y bestia
verde (maniquea visión),
verde miembro perdido por
verde, como manicomio
verde, con su corazón
verde, explota en pedazos
verdes, destruye el alma.
verde pubis, … mejor, ¡chocha
verde!, que come como la
verde diosa de la isla de
verde costa y verde mar.
verde nos explica que lo
verde es la masturbación
verde, y ¡tan intelectual!
verde puta con vestido
verde, con carne podrida,
verde. Oh madre, madre tierra,
verde tierra se cae (y cae
verde) hacia abajo. un trabajo
verde con verde cerebro.
verde, anda adelante como
verde caballo o caballo
verde. yo tengo apellido
verde, y dios tiene apellido
verde: verde, como el mar.
‘verde’ describe la crisis
verde ambiental del tercer
verde disco, suspendido –
verde – en cielo negro, solo.
verde cerca, ver de lejos,
verde loco, no me importa.
verde onanismo de loco…
verde obsesión sexual.
verde demonio con pelo
verde, y ahora llora un mar
verde de lágrimas, … bellas.
verde es la inocencia, o sea
verde la es mi amor. ¿no ves? un
verde helicóptero alegre…
verde choque de suicidio.
[The “retroblogging” project:  this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28.  I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back.  It’s a big project.  But there’s no time limit, right?  The above entry was written leading up to and during a hospital stay.  It’s not perfect, and it’s quite strange, but I feel it’s the most “literary” thing I ever did in Spanish. UPDATE: this poem was posted as poem #1373 under my daily poem series.]

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Caveat: 1997

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I resigned from the graduate program at Penn, feeling very unhappy with departmental politics. I was awarded a Master’s Degree in Spanish Literature, as a sort of consolation prize for not finishing the Ph.D. program I was enrolled in. I got to try to be a “soccer dad” with Jeffrey for several months, while Michelle put in ungodly hours with Merck, Inc., in her new job as a chemical engineer. I started teaching high school Spanish and Social Studies that fall, with an ungodly commute to Moorestown, New Jersey. Neither Michelle nor I particularly liked living in suburban Philadelphia. We fight a lot about money, and about parenting issues with Jeffrey – a step-parent’s role is very confusing.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1997 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 1996

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

My cat Bernie frequently slept on the bookshelf I’d put next to my desk, and she would fall asleep and then fall off the shelf and into the pile of papers on my desk, surprised by her own clumsiness. Cats are like that. I worked very, very hard at Penn, teaching Spanish to lazy, over-privileged, Ivy League undergrads and taking qualifying exams that summer. Michelle and I finally got legally married in a pizza joint in Minneapolis over the summer, too (the Judge came on a motorcycle). Michelle and Jeffrey then joined me in Philadelphia, after she graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota – we rented a house in Yardley, PA, across from Trenton, NJ. I enjoyed taking the train into the city each day for school/work.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1996 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 1995

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I worked nights for UPS in Northeast Minneapolis in order to save up money. This means I can say I’ve been a card-carrying Teamster. At the same time, I took a really amazing class on semiotics in the Comparative Lit department at the University of Minnesota. We bought a kitten that Jeffrey named Bernardo O’Higgins, that was declared to be “Jared’s cat” to accompany the two other cats: Keska “Jeffrey’s cat” and Charlotte, “Michelle’s cat.”I applied to graduate schools. My first choice was UCLA, but I started at the University of Pennsylvania in August, at the Department of Romance Languages, because of Michelle’s eventual East Coast job prospects – so I rented a charming, run-down apartment in West Philly.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1995 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 1994

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

Michelle and I moved in together. Then I spent six months studying the Mapuche Language (Native American Patagonian) at the Universidad Austral de Chile, in Valdivia, Chile. I got to see Buenos Aires, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, Uruguay, etc. I was back in Minnesota with Michelle and Jeffrey for Christmas. Michelle and I decided we were ‘married.’ We both had apprehensions about state-sponsored relationships, though, so we didn’t do anything legally binding at this point.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1994 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: Model A Ford

Hiking & Travel / My Photos / Retroblogging

I don't remember the exact date, but around Christmas of 1994, right after having my having returned from 6 months in Chile, Michelle, Jeffrey and I traveled to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, to visit my father and family. This was one day when I think we got into my dad's 1928 Model A Ford and drove to the beach. Here is a picture of me and Jeffrey with the car in the driveway of where my dad was living at that time, which happened to be right next door to the house he grew up in.

Photo 012

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" written and added 2013-05-06.  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right?]

Caveat: Michelle Leaning

My Drawings & Paintings / Retroblogging

I drew this while living in Minneapolis in 1994, shortly before I went to Chile for 6 months.

This is a picture of Michelle, actually. It's somewhat "imagined" (which is to say, she wasn't posing for it) – but it's her.

Art-michelle1994

[The "retroblogging" project: I'm not sure what the date was that I made this drawing, but it was around this time.]

Caveat: 1993

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I did some graduate-level coursework in Spanish Literature and Literary and Cultural Criticism (Lit-Crit) at the University of Minnesota – tuition was cheap because I’m an alum. I also studied the Dakota Language (Native American Great Plains). I worked in a bookstore. I had a bicycle accident in which I shattered my 2nd metatarsil into 23 pieces. Two surgeries and six weeks on crutches later, at some point, an initially platonic relationship with Michelle became ‘dating.’ Michelle and I took several camping trips to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which is why the UP is symbolically important to me.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1993 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 1992

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

I lived in Pasadena in the house my great grandfather built around 1910. I took art classes and tried to learn Arabic. I was a bit aimless on the job front – I remember working as a temp at a Robinsons-May department store warehouse in West Covina. Then that summer, after a huge, confrontational fight with my dad and stepmother, I moved back to Minnesota. My bestfriend Bob and I become housemates again in South Minneapolis, near Powderhorn Park, and I met our downstairs neighbors Michelle and Jeffrey (her son, who is 5 at the time). I started working in a bookstore, and one time the front wheel came off my car while I was driving it (a 1965 VW Bug).
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1992 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: lo q me pasó una vez por donde metro Tacuba en 1986

Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / My Poetry & Fiction / Retroblogging

Cuando vivía en México una vez conocía a un muchacho de nombre de Epifanio.  Éste fue uno de estos llamados panchos banda.  Pero él me explicó en su voz ronca y sibilante q su banda era mas una "anti-banda", a causa de q en lugar de ser drogueros y marijuaneros, y de andar medio desmayados por oler cemento, andaban todos todavía en escuela – unos de los cologios UNAM, a veinte cuadras de la casa por ahí donde el metro Tacubaya y la colima de la Sta Cruz.  Se habían juntado para protegerse a si mismos, "pus, poqui,… sabes… nos sempri fregando y haciendo la mera madre, pus, cuando nos ibamos pal colegio."  Era un joven muy listo, y pasaba sus tardes en alguna estación del metro, leyendo a Platón.  Pero se vestía de puro pancho, con un largo abrigo roto de color negro, de estilo punk y tenis dibujados, y aretes y saftys y q había escrito sobre el abrigo "pink floyd" y "anarquismo," pues.  Su padre era un albañil se llamaba Gonzalo, creo, y q le conocí una vez, muy orgulloso de su hijo por haber sobrevivido en el barrio y seguido con la escuela a pesar de las presiones sociales y de la droga y de la banda.  Salimos Epi y yo y un grandote se llamaba Joaquín una vez, pasabamos "la Quinta" en la esquina, donde nos compramos unos "quesadillotes" de hongos y requesón, y después nos metimos en el metro por donde Revolución, iyendo para la casa de Tony, q era un "gelatinero" destos q venden las gelatinitas en copitas de plástico de los carritos en la calle ahí donde Tacuba.  Salimos entre la bulla de allí y caminamos de ahí por donde la calle Ontario, y salieron una bola de tres-cuatro muchachos, panchos, a vernos ahí.  Y Epi estaba fuera de su "rincón," o sea su territorio, y siendonos solo tres, y uno de estos imagínate, un gringo (q soy yo) tuvimos q correr, dando vueltas por ahí hasta q nos podimos meter de nuevo en el metro Tacuba, donde habían unos azules (policías) así q nada pudiera pasar, aunque me explicó Epi, "hubiera pus importado por nada q nos metieran hasta la misma madre con chingazos mero enfrente destos puercos."  Hasta me explicó q en su barrio por ejemplo muchos de los policías pertenecen también a banda, solo q andan con uniforme y arma, "pa mejor joder a todos y sacar a los pobres la lana."

[The "retroblogging" project:  this is a "back-post" transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28.  I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back.  It's a big project.  But there's no time limit, right? The above entry is about events that happened when I lived in Mexico City in 1986.  It's not fiction, and it is not perfect Spanish, but it captures the tone and dialect of the street gangs there.]

Caveat: Azul

My Drawings & Paintings / Retroblogging

This remains my favorite of my own work in visual arts. I drew it in pastels from a photograph which I then "abstracted" (not sure what else you would call my distortions…). I guess 1992 was a rather productive period for me.

Art-azul1992

[The "retroblogging" project: I'm not sure what the date was that I made this drawing, but it was around this time.]

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