Quixotica

My father has undertaken a seemingly spontaneous quest to convert a basement's worth of old family photographs to digital media. A highly technical task, to be sure; apparently he developed a clever means of transposition, circumventing the seemingly insurmountable physiological barriers between matter and energy by holding his digital camera really, really close to the paper.
Images akin to the one above have been flooding my inbox for the past few days, and I'm starting to wonder if this project might be a therapeutic means of dealing with the much-hyped "empty nest" syndrome I'v heard so much about. I also wonder why I'm wearing flannel. Then I remember I grew up in New Jersey, a hellish tundra so cold that in the winter they told us stories of pioneers boiling rocks just to have something warm to drink. You might think the stories of "rock soup" were just tall tales told to entertain children; I'm here to tell you that shit was real. Ever wonder why there aren't many elderly in Jersey? It's because most of them died trying to get to school in winter. They fell, cold and numb, their bodies providing a natural staircase up the hill to the schoolhouse. That's what it means to be from Jersey; it means that back in your day, you had to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways, over the corpses of the weak. "Garden State" my ass.


I've lost thirteen pounds since I moved up here, and I managed to screw up my back so badly in the gym Friday that I spent most of the weekend hobbling about in a pose reminiscent of homo erectus with, well, a fucked-up back. I love San Francisco, but I think it's trying to kill me.

I just got panhandled via the Internet. Check out this email:



Dear Alexander Wawro,


Luis Pereira (luispereira7cv@gmail.com) would like to be paid through PayPal.



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Money Request Details


Amount: €1.00 EUR

Event Date: Oct. 15, 2008

Note: Hi there, my name is Luís Pereira, unemployed for reasons of a work related accident and without the respective work fund for this cases, the thing is that my own boss just fired me before I had the chance to do something to secure my future while unemployed, now I face a pile of bills and the school monthly payments, I'm asking for a little help from you to try to keep me going through this rough fase.
Thanks for your time

ps: I just don't know what else to do...



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Pay With PayPal

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I would have sent him the measly euro if my account information was current; I respect that level of enterprise.

Gonna check out some fly rides this weekend. Also, eating; apparently I've lost ten pounds since I arrived. Huh.

So I've got this story due Monday, a piece I've yet to start concerning the recent San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting. Cue Saturday: the smooth caress of afternoon sunshine starts me on a wonderfully groggy quest for soapy absolution; after a "quick shower" that takes the better part of an hour, I putter about the cozy nook Park Merced lovingly deigns to call our two-bedroom apartment.

By two or so I figure there might be something to this whole academia trip, and suit up to catch the 2:08 M up to the Civic Center. I figure I'll hoof it up to Japan Center via Fillmore, maybe see if I can't corral a few outspoken locals to pad out my article with a touch of colorful commentary. Check out the Festival at the Center, snap a few pictures and catch the 38 back to Presidio; shit, with luck I'll make it back just in time for lunch. My British roommate and I haven't accomplished much in the way of interpersonal communication; our few opportunities for male bonding have taken place huddled over the toaster oven, in a mad quest for glory and the perfect ham sandwich.

I hit the rail station only to find a huge line at the ticket machine, something I've never seen even at peak hours. What's more, easily three quarters of these fretful fidgeters are tapping toes clad in vintage 70's footwear; at this point, I think images are a beast far more suited to carrying a narrative of this magnitude.


The train station looked like casting call for a low-budget 70's skin flick. Not pictured: copious quantities of glitter.


Standing room only, baby. I inadvertently felt up at least three people over the course of the trip. Not pictured: angry asian man whose butt I rubbed.


Welcome to LoveFest 2008! Not pictured: the three male nudists I met. You think I'm joking; one was in line to buy a Polish sausage.


Ray Charles didn't die; Elvis ate him. Not pictured: two gold teeth.


I've had it with these motherfuckin' hippies on this motherfuckin' plane! Not pictured: my cultural relevance.


This motherfucker was up on stage in full B-for-Balanced Breakfast ensemble, waving a flag like he was 7th Company taking back Hill 355. Not pictured: any attractive women.


I guess there was supposed to be a parade? Or floats? Maybe they just had a thing for pink effelumps on wheels. Not pictured: woozels.


Apparently, a pimped-out Santa spends the first weekend in October picking up trash and preaching about the dangers of public waste. Not pictured: My dignity.

I never made it past Civic Center; LoveFest stole my weekend. The music was horrible, the stench was worse and it was impossible to walk more than five feet without elbowing a midget in the face; I'm totally going back next year.

YouTube as the vanguard; you know this is a phone-in post.

I start to wonder whether or not this is the career for me; when it comes to writing, I spend most of my time at the keys playing with the relationships between language and syntax. Word choice takes precedence over clarity, and euphony always trumps conciseness. As a journalism student, I find this predilection is frequently at odds with the oft-stated objective to seek and disseminate truth as clearly as possible.

Also, Japanese is hard.

Did you guys see that the House failed to approve the bailout plan? I can't help but feel this is probably for the best; many pundits are forecasting doom and gloom for the world economy if we delay in pursuing an immediate solution. They might be right, but it seems like a poor idea to try and fix a problem we didn't anticipate due to market fluctuations that many in Congress don't seem to fully understand. I know this means our economic woes are far from over, but I'm more comfortable putting my faith in the free market while we wait for cooler heads to prevail.

I had a bit more to scrawl, but I took some NyQuil earlier and I think it's kicking in. Mmmm, antihistamine-induced coma.

I was privileged to reclaim my first submitted article from my professor today, with a bevy of helpful hints thrown in free of charge. The usual commendations regarding an expansive vocabulary, proficiency with the language etc. rang a little hollow; I'm 23 and finishing my upper-division coursework in a class that is widely touted as the "boot camp" of the department. The capability to string two cogent thoughts together with the aid of our friend the semi-colon ought to be expected at this stage of the game.

Also, I was chastised for "overwriting."

What the fuck is overwriting? That's like berating the pizza delivery guy because your pizza got there too early. "Hey man, what the hell are you doing here so quick? I barely had time to finish burying the dead hooker out back! You got a serious problem with overdelivering, and I don't tip for that shit."

This post was originally conceived as an earnest attempt at extolling the virtues of Skippy. Honey Roasted Super Chunk in particular, though when it comes to peanut butter our apartment provides a lavish smorgasbord of decadent delights for even the most discerning palate. No lie, we've got no less than five opened containers in the kitchen, and a freshly discarded one in the bin. Other students amass enough cold pizza and half-empty cartons of dubious Chinese food to feed a small army; we hoard nut butter.

Unfortunately I've got two case briefs to prepare and another couple of chapters to burn through in order to get abreast of the class discussion regarding Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. That, and another fifty-plus characters to memorize for a kanji quiz on Thursday. Good times.

Had to start a local neighborhood blog for one of my courses, check it out if you're bored and have an unquenchable thirst for information about the San Francisco peninsula.

Hey, so I trekked into town to get a comprehensive blood test done today. Doctor thinks I might have hepatitis A. That or liver failure.

Good times.

On the upside, going to a barbecue with my roommate tomorrow. Also, made a really kickin' sandwich today. Toaster ovens are ridiculously under-appreciated in modern culture.

Ho hum.

Rocked the house with my classroom court presentation today, arguing the merits of prior restraint cases when dealing with threats of imminent danger to human life. Feelin' pretty good 'bout my grade, and it's 15% of the class so when it comes to Comm. Law my knickers are feeling warm, comfy and fresh-out-of-the-dryer toasty.

Unfortunately, I totally bombed my kanji test which only served to immediately return said knickers to their hideously twisted state. Gonna relearn the Japanese writing system this weekend, plus another 50+ characters. I'm actually kinda happy about that; with no classes Friday to Sunday are the loneliest days of the week for me. Hopefully I'll meet some interesting people soon; clubs start up next week, and my roommate was cool enough to invite me to a barbeque on Sunday. I have no doubt sumptuous heaps of hot dogs, hamburgers and (hopefully) attractive and interesting women will be available. My roomie's Japanese, and you know what they say about Asian women and tall white guys.

They buy platform shoes? I'm sleepy, fuck off.

Also, my grandmother (who's in her mid-90's) while wandering around the house delirious early yesterday morning managed to fall and break her neck. She then promptly got back up and wandered in to my uncle's bedroom to complain of soreness. Apparently she fractured some vertebrae, and she went through surgery today to fuse something important to something even more important to keep something vitally important from being severed. I guess she's been kept paralyzed and unconscious after the surgery, and they're hoping they can wake her up tomorrow. She'll probably stick around for a little while longer, but I doubt she'll ever leave the hospital.

Cranked the page down to one post at a time for comfortable reading, don't forget to check out what came before.