MEDICAL SCHOOL DRAFT THE OSTEOPATHIC REMIX POST #1: Because AACOMAS wants it in 500 words. Because D.O.'s don't have time for jibber jabber when there's work to be done. My task is to explain why I chose "OTHER (HEALTH CARE RELATED)" under the question about how would I describe my previous career/experience, before going on to the rest of the essay. Let's listen in.

I have selected "OTHER" as my answer to Question #12 because I have worked a clerical support position in a public hospital for the past seven years.

Working in the hospital, I have been exposed to a wide variety of physicians, including osteopaths. D.O.'s have always impressed me; they are, in general, more down-to-earth than their allopathic counterparts, equal in intelligence but less arrogant in the application of their intelligence. Perhaps this is due to the large number of nontraditional applicants osteopathic schools attract; one can learn traits like compassion and humility working outside the sometimes closed world of medicine more quickly than within it.

I am a nontraditional applicant myself. I started out wanting to be a writer, and ended up working a nondescript office position at my local hospital. I am also, at 29, somewhat older than the average applicant. A third point of interest is that my father is a physician. These unique experiences have prepared me for medical school, each in their own way. For example, the flow of information within a hospital or a medical practice depends on clear verbal communication, where my skills as a writer will be an asset. My relative lack of youth does, hopefully, suggest a degree of maturity on my part, that I am well prepared for the choice I am making, and willing to work hard to succeed. The fact that my father is a physician means I have grown up around medicine and understand its unique rigors and stresses better than most people.

These qualities lead me to believe I am a prepared applicant for training as a physician. I haven't always thought of myself this way. It is a role I have grown into, given how much exposure I have had to the profession over the years, at home and in my working life. There just seems to be so much opportunity in medicine, if you're willing to work for it. I find psychiatry inherently interesting, though I am not sure I would enjoy it in practice. Infectious diseases as a specialty sounds fascinating, and seems the closest to the type of theoretical biology I am studying in school right now. I love the idea of the family practitioner, jack of all trades, working out there on the frontlines of medicine (and osteopathic schools famously turn out fantastic family practitioners.) I'm sure other specialties will appeal to me as I learn more about them. The medical degree opens up so many options for someone willing to be industrious, able to relate to people in need, and committed to the high standards of the profession. It is my belief I can live up to all those qualifications, and I hope my academic record and personal history provide strong evidence that I am a good candidate for the medical degree.

--Eh. May be a little long on the specialty stuff vs. the rest of it. I'm not bullcrapping about D.O.'s, though; I never met one who was a jerk.

MEDICAL SCHOOL DRAFT DISCUSSION POST #2: Unless anybody has a really bad feeling about it, the final product will be something very close to Draft #4 below. No, this isn't a cheap attempt to UP~! my PROSTATE~! Wait--yes, it is.

Things I can see maybe doing different:

--I'm talking about the things that could be wrong with me as an applicant as a rhetorical device, so I can say why they are, in fact, things in my favor. Maybe I should go a little less negative in the beginning. I feel like John Edwards comparing the Bad Rich America with the Good Poor America. Because Bad Rich America is bad bad bizness.

--More specifics would be nice. But in my case going into specifics verges into the realms of making stuff up. And that's no way to run a medical school application.

--I dunno. Talk about pornography a little more, I guess.

The prostate joke is intentional.

MEDICAL SCHOOL DRAFT POST #4: Minor alterations after talking to the parents. No, this isn't a cheap attempt to UP~! my POSTRATE~!

My application to medical school requires a bit of explanation, in particular three qualities of mine that could be considered nontraditional. First, medicine was not my first career choice. Coming out of high school, I wanted to be a writer, so I earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing. As it turned out, I am not well-suited to the lifestyle a writer needs to become successful, particularly the isolation required to sit and type and create and recreate. As I have no interest in teaching writing, I needed to find something else. Second, I am a bit older than the average medical school applicant, as a result of having started in a different career path. At 29 I am young in relative terms, but compared to most of my fellow applicants I am positively ancient. Third, I am the son of a physician, my father. I am aware that, as a class of people, the children of physicians who become physicians have a certain set of stereotypes associated with them: that they don't work as hard, that they feel entitled to their positions, that they do not appreciate what they're doing the way physicians from non-medical families do.

These three aspects could be considered deficits in terms of application, but I believe they are all assets in their own right. The ability to write, for example, has wide application within the field of medicine. Physicians write orders, professional correspondence, scientific papers, hospital notes, and so on; the flow of information around the hospital depends on the effective verbal communication of physicians. The ability to write, and write clearly, would be an asset at every level of patient care. In regard to my relative lack of youth, there is something of a tradeoff. My relatively older mind is not quite the pliant vessel its younger version was, ready to be filled with the theory and practice of medicine. But in losing that, I have gained wisdom and experience of a type unavailable to those who have spent most of their lives as students. I have (to put it bluntly) lived in the "real world" and since most patients live there as well, I think I have an edge in terms of how I relate to them. And the fact that my father is a physician suggests that I know exactly what I'm getting into. I know the demands it places on your time. I know about the calls in the middle of the night, the rising early in the morning, the struggles to keep a practice afloat. I think this suggests a certain level of commitment to the profession. You can't say I haven't been warned.

What I want to suggest is that, though I am a nontraditional applicant, the breaks I have made with tradition are ones that make me a good candidate for medical school. I have not always thought this way. It is safe to say I have grown into the idea of being a physician. Medicine has always been a part of my life and not just for the obvious reasons. For most of my adult working life I have been employed in the office building of my local hospital, doing the sort of low-skilled cubicle-based labor a bachelor's degree in creative writing prepares you for. In the process I have been exposed to a number of medical students, residents, and attendings. I have been impressed by their intellects, their devotion to the art of medicine, and their ability to effect real, positive change in the lives of their patients. Working where and with whom I did, the goal of becoming a physician began to seem more tangible to me. Moreover, it seemed the kind of career I could enjoy doing, though what specialty appeals to me most I cannot say.

There just seems to be so much opportunity in medicine, if you're willing to work for it. I find psychiatry inherently interesting, though I am not sure I would enjoy it in practice. Infectious diseases as a specialty sounds fascinating, and seems the closest to the type of theoretical biology I am studying in school right now. I love the idea of the family practitioner, jack of all trades, master of none, working out there on the frontlines of medicine. I'm sure other specialties will appeal to me as I learn more about them. The medical degree opens up so many options for someone willing to be industrious, able to relate to people in need, and committed to the high standards of the profession. It is my belief I can live up to all those qualifications, and I hope my academic record and personal history provide strong evidence that I am a good candidate for the medical degree.

MEDICAL SCHOOL ESSAY DRAFT POST #3: Let's do this.

My application to medical school requires a bit of explanation, in particular three qualities of mine that could be considered nontraditional. First, medicine was not my first career choice. Coming out of high school, I wanted to be a writer, so I earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing. As it turned out, I am not well-suited to the lifestyle a writer needs to become successful, particularly the isolation required to sit and type and create and recreate. As I have no interest in teaching writing, I needed to find something else. Second, I am a bit older than the average medical school applicant, as a result of having started in a different career path. At 29 I am young in relative terms, but compared to most of my fellow applicants I am positively ancient. Third, I am the son of a physician, my father. I am aware that, as a class of people, the children of physicians who become physicians have a certain set of stereotypes associated with them: that they don't work as hard, that they feel entitled to their positions, that they do not appreciate what they're doing the way physicians from non-medical families do.

These three aspects could be considered deficits in terms of application, but I believe they are all assets in their own right. The ability to write, for example, has wide application within the field of medicine. Physicians write orders, professional correspondence, scientific papers, hospital notes, and so on; the flow of information around the hospital depends on the effective verbal communication of physicians. The ability to write, and write clearly, would be an asset at every level of patient care. In regards to my relative lack of youth, there is something of a tradeoff. My relatively older mind is not quite the pliant vessel its younger version was, ready to be filled with the theory and practice of medicine. But in losing that, I have gained wisdom and experience of a type unavailable to those who have spent most of their lives as students. I have (to put it bluntly) lived in the "real world" and since most patients live there as well, I think I have an edge in terms of how I relate to them. And the fact that my father is a physician suggests that I know exactly what I'm getting into. I know the demands it places on your time. I know about the calls in the middle of the night, the rising early in the morning, the struggles to keep a practice afloat. I think this suggests a certain level of commitment to the profession. You can't say I haven't been warned.

What I want to suggest is that, though I am a nontraditional applicant, the breaks I have made with tradition are ones that make me a good candidate for medical school. I have not always thought this way. It is safe to say I have grown into the idea of being a physician. Medicine has always been a part of my life and not just for the obvious reasons. For most of my adult working life I have been employed in the office building of my local hospital, doing the sort of low-skilled cubicle-based labor a bachelor's degree in creative writing prepares you for. In the process I have been exposed to a number of medical students, residents, and attendings. I have been impressed by their intellects, their devotion to the art of medicine, and their ability to effect real, positive change in the lives of their patients. Working where and with whom I did, the goal of becoming a physician began to seem more tangible to me. Moreover, it seemed the kind of career I could enjoy doing, though what specialty appeals to me most I cannot say.

There just seems to be so much opportunity in medicine, if you're willing to work for it. I find psychiatry inherently interesting, though I am not sure I would enjoy it in practice. Infectious diseases as a specialty sounds fascinating, and seems the closest to the type of theoretical biology I am studying in school right now. I love the idea of the family practitioner, jack of all trades, master of none, working out there on the frontlines of medicine. And I'm sure other specialties will appeal to me as I learn more about them. The medical degree opens up so many options for someone willing to be industrious, able to relate to people in need, and committed to the high standards of the profession. I hope my record shows that I am a good candidate for the medical degree.

MEDICAL SCHOOL ESSAY DRAFT POST #2: If I get through it. I hope. I'm not watching Kerry talk so I can do this.

My application to medical school requires a bit of explanation. First, medicine was not my first career choice. Coming out of high school I wanted to be a writer, so that's what I went to school for. As an activity, I enjoyed writing immensely, and I still do. As a profession, I found it not to my liking; I didn't have the ability to endure the isolation required to write and write the way professionals do, and I had no interest in teaching writing. This leads me to my second point: my relative lack of youth, a result of getting the aforementioned degree. At 29, I am, on the grand scale, not very old at all, but relative to other medical school applicants I am positively ancient. Third, I am the son of a doctor, and as a class of people the children of physicians who become physicians have a certain set of stereotypes associated with them: that they don't work as hard, that they feel entitled to their positions, that, above all, they do not feel the love of medicine the way other doctors do.

So these are all things that could be held against me. It is my contention, though, that they are assets, and should be seen as such. They are the ways I am a unique candidate for medical school, and suggest the ways in which I could be a unique physician.

First, that medicine is my second career choice. Writing was my first, but writing is also a skill, one that doesn't leave you, though it does atrophy with disuse. Within the practice of medicine it has wide application, where the ability to communicate verbally, with clarity, is extremely important. The flow of information within the hospital depends upon it.

Second, my relative seniority. The reason why this is a deficit is obvious: my older mind is not quite the pliant vessel ready to be filled with practical and theoretical knowledge it was in its younger days. But where my mind's pliancy has been lessened, its wisdom has increased. I have experienced more than the typical applicant about to enter into the second half of eight years of continuous schooling. I have humped crappy desk jobs. I have interacted with people within and without medicine, lived in what is charmingly referred to as "the real world," and learned the things you can't learn if all you've ever been is a student. Time spent not being a student can only make me a better medical student, I think.

Third, my status as a physician's son, born as I was one calm April morning to the wife of a fourth-year medical student. This could be held against me, for the reasons outlined above. Or it could just mean that I know better than anyone what I'm getting into by choosing medical school. I have seen the effort my father has put in over the years. The rising early and the getting home late, the struggles to keep a practice afloat, the calls in the middle of the night. I know intimately that it is no easy thing to become a doctor. Yet I know the joy the job brings to my father as well, how much he enjoys his patients and the direct effect he has on them. He's the one who has always told me to do something I liked, and that's the part of him I really wish to emulate; not what he does so much as his enjoyment of it.

For I really think medicine is the right choice for me. I have no idea what specialty I would choose at this point, but so many of them sound fascinating. I find psychiatry inherently interesting, though I'm not sure I'd enjoy it in practice. Infectious diseases sounds fascinating, both as a subject to study and a type of medicine to practice. I love the idea of family practice, being the jack of all trades out there on the frontlines of medicine. And others too, some I haven't even seriously considered yet. There just seems to be so much opportunity there, if you're willing to work for it. I hope my record indicates that I am.

More than anything else, I feel like I have grown into the idea of being a physician. I have always been around it: I grew up with it, and even now I am employed in the office building at my local hospital (my current position is registrar for the division of trauma.) Though it is not my first choice, and it took a few more years to make that choice than it does for most physicians, I believe it is my best choice.

--I'm too tired to write any more, but there isn't much more to add to this version. It follows a logical argument, listing why some of my unusual qualities could be considered hindrances, but are actually pluses, and ends with a paean to the muse of medicine. I need to work on the paean part. The self-doubts of the first draft are mostly encapsulated within the first paragraph of this version. Only you, oh Internet, know their full form. Comments appreciated, like before.

MEDICAL SCHOOL DRAFT ESSAY DISCUSSION POST #1: After feedback from Dr. Thornton, to whom I am very grateful.

I spent two hours on the presumptive draft #2 and only got two paragraphs:

"My desire to enter medical school requires some explanation, for as my record should make plain, it was not always my goal to be a physician. Leaving high school, I wanted to be a writer. I had been told I was good at writing, and I enjoyed it, so it seemed logical to pursue it. Practical concerns were not seriously addressed, and why should they be? I thought I could sit and pound stories out, the way the writers I admired had, typing for hours at a time, struggling towards that great breakthrough.

It was harder than I thought. The writing never came that easy to me; even now, it doesn't. I began to discover I lacked the drive to tirelessly create and recreate that sets a professional writer apart from other writers. Learning this disappointed me--it meant I would have to try something else as a profession. But the need to write has never left me. My theory is, being a writer is what you are, if you are one. It has more to do with the way you interact with the world than if you are explicitly paid to write. If you express yourself to the world through words, you are writer. This is what I have learned, seven years after graduating from college with a bachelor's in creative writing. And that and a dollar-ten will buy you a cup of coffee, as they say."

FUCK. I just sat here for at least an hour writing and erasing and rewriting the paragraph that follows this. I'm trying to get in some of the stuff Ben suggested--actually, I'm trying to get in the thing where I discuss why writing is a skill uniquely applicable to medicine, what with the writing of orders, and the all-around need to communicate clearly. Saying the f-word in all caps is no doubt part of that. Plus I'm trying to get it in without sounding like an asshole--meaning, I want to sound like being a writer will add something that will make me a better physician, and not sound like writing is this really great thing that I've always loved doing--but now I have to be a stoopid doctor. That's what I don't want to sound like, that last part.

Ben also pointed out to me (in e-mail) that I haven't said "why [I] went from office drone to pre-requisite classes other than the fact that you were technically capable of answering Yes when asked if you were presumed to follow in your dad's footsteps." I haven't answered this question to my satisfaction either. I think me think that I'd enjoy medicine and I'd be okay at it should be enough of an answer, but I get the feeling it isn't.

There is something so Confessions of St. Augustine about Draft #1 I really don't like. I feel like I'm setting up Medicine to be my deity, to lead me out of the morass that was my life before I found my One True Calling. I want there to be some narrative there, but I also want to emphasize which unique qualities of mine will make me a better physician:

--My ability to communicate.
--My relative lack of youth and workplace experience and the ability to communicate in normal social situations that goes with it.
--My status as a doctor's son, suggesting that I understand well the burdens of medicine.

So I want to get those in there. Tomorrow I'll try and whip up an actual second draft, if I can figure any of this out. It's late now, though.

MEDICAL SCHOOL ESSAY DRAFT POST #1: This way, I can't procrastinate by writing on the blog. I kill the two birds with the one stone. A good plan. Simple. Logical. Efficient. I like it.

I should start at the beginning, for as my record should make plain, I never intended to be a physician. Leaving high school, I was consciously against it. I liked to write; therefore writing was what I would major in. Practical concerns were not seriously addressed. And why should they be? I thought I could just pound things out on my own, the way writers do as they become professionals.

It was harder than I thought.

In the meantime I worked in the office building of my local hospital. I always thought it was temporary--I was a writer, remember, or soon to be one--and in the beginning I never thought of myself as being of my coworkers in that office. As the months became years, though, it became harder to convince myself I was going to sit down and crank out a masterpiece like all the authors of all the masterpieces I have read and loved had. It became easy to think, this is your life, an office drone, wiling away the time at a keyboard, making copies, longing to run an errand across the street so I could at least get some fresh air. I felt trapped by my circumstances, as I'm sure most of us do at one point or another.

Even as I felt this way, I knew there were alternatives. I worked in a hospital; medical students and residents passed through all the time. They were about my age; they didn't seem hugely different from me. Talking to them, I was not aware of their intellects towering over my own. If they can do it, I thought, there was no reason I couldn't, if I wanted to. Medicine began to seem like a tangible goal to me, at least in theory. In practice, though, for questions like, Would I like practicing medicine? Or not? --I had no answers.

Let me be candid at this point: I was raised by a doctor, my father. I have been around medicine my entire life. I cannot put a precise figure on the amount of times I was asked in my younger years, "So, you going to be a doctor like your father?" but I can assure you it was quite a few and my answer was always No. This was a reflexive answer, given out of annoyance at the presumption of the questioner than anything else. But even as I said No, I never really thought No, or even Yes. I just wanted the question over and done with; I never really considered, would I like medicine? Until I did.

Working at the hospital, I thought it was something I could like. Going back to school (three years after the first undergraduate graduation) and taking science classes for the first time since high school, it seemed like I had some aptitude for the basic prerequisites of medicine. Medicine seemed like something I could do. I loved the sheer range of career options medicine opened up: the combined degrees (interesting in theory, though no doubt tortuous to attain), the subspecialties (psychiatry is inherently interesting to me, though I'm not sure I'd enjoy it in practice; infectious disease as a speciality sounds fascinating; I love the idea of being a general practitioner, jack of all trades on the frontline of medicine; and so on.) There seems to be so much opportunity there, if you're willing to work for it.

I guess it is fair to say that I have grown into the idea of being a physician. It didn't always suit me, but I have thought about it; batted it about; and come to the conclusion that medicine is what I want to do with my life. The years that have past have made me more comfortable with this decision, and I consider my relative old age an asset, not a deficit. I haven't just worked hard, and gotten good grades; I bring I set of unique expereicnes to the table too, ones that I feel would make me a better physician, if only because they make me a wiser person.

Blah blah blah blah. Like I can mention the School of Hard Knocks in a med school essay. I dunno. It sags in places. Maria, if you happen by, let me know what you think. I'll try and rewrite it tomorrow.

OUTLOOK CLOUDY: Try again tomorrow.

Of course, you have to ask, if that's all you're going to post, why make the post at all? It's the principle of the thing, I'm afraid. And if I talk about it like this, I can make it seem like more than it really was. The post, I mean.

I'm probably not fooling anybody, actually.

BEEN CRUISING ABOUT IN THE '89 CUTLASS LATELY: When you need some extra speed you just turn off the air conditioner and it's --whoosh--you're back against your seat. Just like when Lord Humongous put kicks in the nitrous during the grand finale chase in The Road Warrior. Yes, I am the ayatollah of rock-n-rollah.

On a somewhat related front: Warrior of the Lost World, one of the cheapo post-apocalyptic 80s things that followed Mad Max 2, is one of the best episodes of MST3K. I love the 80s stuff on that show--it's generally the funnest, there's cute coyness or message-making that's in the 60s episodes, or no uncomfortable edginess that accompanies even the crappiest of similar stuff from the 70s. Then again, the uncomfortable edginess made Mitchell pretty memorable. Actually, MST3K could polish a turd from an era. But I guess the 80s crap I feel warmer toward for sentimental generational reasons.

I guess I'll have to pick up a copy of Eightball #23 at some point. That Sean Collins post is quite the great summative analysis and linkfest.

I have nothing else. It takes longer to spell "procrastinate" than to do it. Or something.

THE OLD SEALABS WERE SO MUCH BETTER: Yes, that is so very geek to say. But the ones with Erik Estrada and Captain Murphy--that was the perfect cast. The new Texan captain lacks Murphy's earnest idiocy, which was of a completely different kind than Stormy's earnest idiocy.

There is an expression that goes or means something like, everything works out for a reason. And this expression is bunk; nothing happens for a reason. You are allowed, however, to adjust your impressions of your own experiences so things do, in fact, work out for a reason. Just in case you were wondering about that.

DA leaving ESPN? Holy crud! Obviously, the most credible NBA reporter anywhere is the most credible NBA guy on ESPN, where the only other guy who is at least partially credible is Screamin' A. Smith (read his columns sometimes, he's generally pretty articulate and reasonable.) I really hope he goes to TNT--the best NBA network--and does not become a Murdoch employee in his (Murdoch's) hideous push to take away market share from an ESPN that's been coasting for years. Via the DVDVR. If TNT gets him, I do wonder where they'd use him, actually; it doesn't seem like he'll naturally fit in with the EJ-Kenny-Charles banter.

I listed EJ first coz he's white. Gotta represent. Holla! And I'm sure glad ESPN put their chips on Stu Scott. He's not annoying in the least. Nope. Not one little bit.

I'm drawing a blank. It's looks like this is it, oh Internet. And hey--let's be careful out there.

AIN'T NOTHING TO IT BUT TO DO IT: The one D.O. I talked to said he sweated over his personal statement a lot because if you don't know somebody in the school, it's hard to get in and he was the first person from his family to attempt med school. The other guy I talked to, a third-year osteopathic student, said the essay was the least of my worries; that, basically, admissions is all a numbers game and what they do is they double your MCAT score, multiply your regular GPA and your science GPA by ten and if that number is above 120 (and I think mine is) the chances are good you're going to get in somewhere. Maybe not where you really really want to get in--it's a crapshoot, just like undergrad was. But you've made the basic qualifications, and then the letters get factored in, which are good to have--it's always good to know people--and then the essay comes in somewhere. It's actually something for the interviewer to read so he or she can have some questions for you when you come in for the interview, god willing. I'm going with the other guy; his story makes me optimistic.

He said in his essay he talked about why he took so long to get through undergrad. And I'm saying to myself, hey, I can tell a similar tale. I mean, I got through undergrad okay, but it was in creative writing, and so it was essentially a four-year seminar on Like Skills For Dead-end Jobs. And then how I meandered, and went back to undergrad, and took some science classes to see what I could do, and here I am. You see? It's just my last ten years. This stuff writes itself.

He also said the way to the fat fat checks was medical school, a year of internship, and then law school, and then a lovely career managing the intersections between medicine and law. At 29, I'm probably too old to get that much more educated, but I am so not opposed to the fat fat checks.

If any admissions boards Google me--um, I just want to help people. Helping people fills me with a radiant glow. I'd do it for free, actually, and am planning on joining Medecins Sans Frontieres at some point. And turning it into a global for-profit primary practice conglomerate. Wait....

So. It's still early. Get essays done. Sit back and let the admissions coinflipping happen. Dig it, daddy-o.

MEMO TO ALL THE GIRLS IN THE LOWRIDER JEANS: Can I make you a belt?

That's it, really. Jer is claiming some Asia Carrera love, but I never thought she was a good porn star. She was above par as an actress, but as someone portraying their enthusiasm for the sex act--that is to say, someone being a porn star--she was never very convincing. It's not coincidental that her best roles were portraying women who worked as sex workers but didn't like being sex workers (see Masseuse II. Well, her best role that I've seen, and I have not seen a lot.)

I swear at this point this blog will serve as something other than a forum for my deviancy. (When was it ever anything but?--Ed.) Hey, keep it down, Mickey Kaus' imaginary editor. You'll give the game away.

Anyway. I could talk about summer physics but its pretty easy and not worth stressing about. I could talk about how badly I'm procrastinating on my med school essays, but I don't want to beat myself up right now. I could talk about my need for sleep--but that would prevent me from getting that which I need. So: I will stop.

SINCE THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS WE ARE FULL OF SHIT IS LAYING OFF THE HOOKER TALK: I will have to do some of my own. Presenting: the conversations that pop into your head after you find out your favorite porn star does escort work.

"Miko--hi! I'm Justin. Your two o'clock."

"Justin, hello! Please come in." Big hug. "It's so nice to meet you."

"It's really nice to meet to meet you, too."

"Just set your bag down anywhere." The bag was set down. "Would you like a drink or anything?"

"No. No thank you. This is a really nice place--the agency does a really good job, I guess."

"Oh, they really do. It's the details that make the difference, I think. Have a seat."

"Thank you. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's supposed to be a kind of a fantasy, right? The mood is right. The lights are low--I love the candles, by the way."

"Oh--thank you. Those are mine. You should see my house."

Huge goofy smile. "Yeah, I bet, right? They're supposed to be really therapeutic."

"They are. They really add something, I think."

"Yeah," nodding head. "I never really got into them. I never--they just don't seem really masculine. Not that I'm afraid to be un-masculine, or something."

A long, still smile. "So. Justin. What are you into?"

"Into?" I look away from her for a moment. "I think, for me--you're my all time favorite porn star. I've never seen an adult star embrace as many kinds of roles as you--"

"Thank you."

"--I mean, you've really run the gamut, you know? You're a multifaceted entertainer, I think. Probably the finest Asian porn star of your generation."

"Thank you, baby." She's a porn star--she's going to call me 'baby' at some point.

"So--" --recovering-- "I think, for me, just being around you is what is going make this worth something to me. This is just--I guess I'm kind of in awe of you."

Small smile. If she was less polite, or knew me better, she would've rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be in awe of me."

"No no, it's just part of the experience for me." The punchline: "It'll be a sort of a sexual shock and awe."

She laughed. And we were off.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALTOID ABUSER: In recent years I have become quite the mint-popper. Not coincidentally, in the past few years I have been ingesting more and more of the demon substances, coffee and tobacco. I am not sure if they're helping, actually. I am on the Altoids now (peppermint if necessary, cinnamon preferred) because my beloved Smints have lost their market penetration. Sometimes I can taste the taste in my mouth and it isn't pretty.

Let's pull a foreign policy Hubie Brown: "You're the Philippines. You've been invaded by America before. You've been taken over by America for cockamamie reasons around the turn of the previous century. You've been roped into sending five hundred troops to Iraq so the President of the United States can check off your name on his list of the coalition of the willing. Mind you, this Iraq thing is exactly like your situation a hundred years ago.

"Now a bunch of insurgents have captured one of your people. They're going to behead him if you don't pull your troops out. You know the President doesn't need your troops. It's an entirely cosmetic relationship. Your nation's defense is not tied up with American defense like the South Koreans. So what do you do? You pull out. You don't condemn one of your citizens to death for the sake of a principle with very little force behind it. It's a no-brainer."

I'm actually not sure if Hubie uses the word "cockamamie." Simmons is such the master at pulling a Hubie....

I went over to Ampersand, sure he'd have some really annoying defense of Amy Richards. And there's nothing about it, just a bunch of gay marriage stuff. I though abortion was Topic One in Ampland. Or maybe the Richards flap still hasn't passed out of the right-leaning part of blogland that cares about abortion into the rabid pro-choice part of blogland quite yet.

I really think you have to be Republican-leaning to an unreasonable degree to give much of a crap about the Berger thing.

More when my Will to Blog isn't quite so worn out.

ONE POST A DAY. WHAT HAPPENED TO ONE POST A DAY?: I fell asleep. Sue me. For falling asleep. Go ahead and sue--no jury in the world will convict me. I got rights.

No posts since July 11th. Jim is pulling a Slotman.

I'm not sure I like the group-style blogging over at Eschaton. The joy of Atrios' site was always Atrios: his put-downs, his very un-Instapundit self-deprecation, his contempt for the other side. The subs are good, don't get me wrong, but only Atrios slings the partisan venom the way you and I love it slung.

I'm glad Daze still checks my site out sometimes.

After Abortion on the Amy Richards flap. K-Lo says Richards is a feminist activist of some kind, so she (Richards) really was just living her life to match her politics, and not the other way as non-nuts do. I got to the Corner via a link, by the way; I never read it, or shop at Costco, unless forced to. Yes, you have to be following the Richards flap to get that joke.

A more minor flap is the Identity Crisis flap. I haven't read the second issue yet, but the stupidity of Issue One--let's kill someone off to get people buying this thing! I know--SUE DIBNY!--has been upped to epic stupid proportions in the second issue, where it is revealed that Sue was raped by Dr. Light. Not the female Japanese one. The goofy Silver Age one. The one who was a one-note joke in the current Teen Titans cartoon--remember that, Time-Warner? Of course you don't; you're a vast, self-contradictory media massmind. Neilalien gives you links. What's going to happen when Marvel and DC run out of established characters to abuse? There has to be a theoretical limit, like when people say we've got fifty years left of fossil fuels. What would you say, we got twenty years left of Sue Dibnys? Fifteen? Ten? Actually, the Hurting sums it up nicely. And has the evidence so you can judge for yourself.

More fictionblogging from Jer. Get back to writing about hookers! BOOOO! Get to the good stuff!

Hopefully, I'm kidding.

Links great! Less thinking! Or something.

TOO LATE FOR EVEN A GIMMICK POST: Yep. Not that I could even think of a good gimmick at this moment. Posts in your future will involve me blathering some more about how much I enjoy the Earth X saga. Or my applications. Or this National Basketball Association dealie. Or about the best-of KMD album or the Monster Island Czars album if I ever pick them up.

But right now, as the book beloved in my youth and yours once said, Good night moon.

MORE TRUE TALES OF THE OFFICE:
All administrations have their own styles, and I've been through quite
a few of them in the past seven years. Some of them work through pure
intimidation, and are loathed and feared by all the office's staff.
Some do benevolent neglect: if you have a problem, go see them and
they'll do something maybe, otherwise it's five o'clock and I gotta go
home. The current administration operates by encouraging the formation
of cliques, where the members of the clique have a favored position
within the department and those outside do not. This is good for those
within the clique, but those unwilling or unable to join have little
influence. This is an interesting way to manage, as it is adversarial
but it is Team Adversarial, not simple the top versus everyone else.

For all you future MBAs out there: benevolent neglect is your best
choice if you value a happy office. Because, really, all is vanity, so
just do your job and don't worry about making friends or enemies. Plus
it says here the finest Roman emperors were masters of benevolent
neglect.

Maybe because I just read The Illuminatus Trilogy, but now I'm thinking
the Earth X saga is the Illuminatus Trilogy of the Marvel Universe. For
one, the human race is manipulated by secret masters with their own
purposes in both books. For another, all of Krueger's retro-continuity
could be seen as a collection of conspiracy theories (like, every
important event in the Marvel universe has some underlying purpose that
is only being revealed in the Earth X saga, just like every important
event in the Illuminatus universe has secret purpose behind it that
only few understand.) And sometimes both books collapse under their own
weight, as secret after secret after secret is exposed. Both sets
characters never quite escape their own manipulation either, though
they do their darn best.

Plus they're both trilogies. And there's so few trilogies out there these days.

The former Blow Hard is now fictionblogging. It's good stuff and you should read it.

So Kenyon is now a Nugget. (Isn't calling somebody a Nugget basically
an insult?) The Nets are dismantling themselves so they can be really
stinky when they move to an arena in Brooklyn whose construction will
involve the dismantling of homes where people live right now with no
economic benefits for Brooklyn at all. That one brief period where the
Nets were really really good was....really really brief. And sort of
hollow in the end there, going down easy against the Lakers and Spurs.
At least they left us with that great great least-likely-de
facto-NBA-championship ever 7-game Pistons-Nets series. They went out
fighting. On the other side, Kenyon has become one of my favorite
players and the Nuggets are going to be quite good next year. Say, what
will that division look like next year? They're in the geographically
inaccurate Northwest division. Well, they should've called in the North-West division, because the
teams are either north of something or west of something. Anyway:

Denver Nuggets: Added one of the fiercest players in the game. Will be a league pass favorite.
Minnesota Timberwolves: Will win a lot of games. No longer intriguing.
Portland Trail Blazers: I don't think they're making it to the playoffs again.
Seattle SuperSonics: And I know they're not. The actual Northwest is falling on hard times basketball-wise.
Utah Jazz: Another League Pass favorite. Makes the sixth playoff spot. BOLD PREDICTION!

I know the East is on the comeback trail, but the West is still a good
argument for having the best 16 teams league-wide make the playoffs,
not 8 and 8.

Well, that's it.

MANAGERIAL CLASS? OR MANAGERIAL....CULT?: Anybody else's place of business like this? Everybody has to dress okay at work: wear a shirt with a collar, no jeans, don't wear flip flops, etc. The only people who go above and beyond this are the administrators: they wear the, you know, business look: white shirts, ties, suits, business suits for the ladies (or lady in my office's case; it's a three-person administration, basically.) And they're the only ones who dress down on Fridays, even though it's Casual Friday for the rest of the office every day of the week. It's the darnedest thing, like they have some ancestral memory of past offices where Casual Friday was a going concern. Or like they're part of some overclass whose rules they have to respect even though there's nobody mandating they respect those rules. Huh.

Say. You know what? I wonder....I wonder if George Bush should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. Mmm. Yes. Yes, he should.

Kobe: not a Clipper. My bold prediction: the 2004-2005 Utah Jazz win more games than the 2004-2005 Los Angeles Lakers. Not that Kobe+Clippers would have won more, but Kobe, Brand, Maggette is a lot more intriguing that Kobe, Odom, Caron Butler.

Physics test: first question was conceptually difficult, the rest was pretty straightforward. The concept of forces doing negative work is sort of hard to grasp, though as an office drone I should be used to it by now.

All I got. Universe X Volume 2 is still entertaining me.

THE MULTIPLICATION OF SEXUAL FANTASIES: I imagine there used to be a time when, if you wanted to fantasize about the cute girls in the front of your physics class while your well-meaning instructor is going on and on about some minute detail, you could only picture yourself having sex with them. In today's world you can also picture what a lap dance would be like with one or possibly both of them, or, for that matter, what they would perform like as adult film stars (though this is less likely where I live.) It's just as unlikely as finding yourself randomly having sex with them, which means it's just as likely as having sex with them and is, as such, a perfectly reasonable way to fantasize about the girls in the front of the class.

My point is, pre sexual revolution, you only had this one set of sexual fantasies. Post sexual revolution, you also have this Stripper set of fantasies and this Pornstar set of fantasies, any of which can be applied to the object of your fleeting affection. Any of which is also a possible role for her, though now it's a private fantasy of her being a publicly available fantasy, which is still a private fantasy but of a different type. At least with me, the fantasy roles are applied with various degrees of success: the girl you see yourself in bed with is not the same girl who you see giving you a fabulous lap dance.

This is important in some way. I'm not sure what. Somebody really needs to tell that one girl in the front of my class how lucrative the honorable profession of exotic dancing is, though.

Some non-pervert points:

--Shaq trade finally goes through. Bill Simmons tells you why this is bad bad bad for the Lakers.

--Kobe makes his decision tomorrow. The Clippers traded a couple of people away to clear up cap room. Could be good sign. Could mean nothing. But if Kobe really wants to press this "I, Jordan" thing as much as he always has, he's gonna want to go to the non-entity Clippers like MJ went to the non-entity Bulls.

--Kupchak: "We have no idea whether Kobe will come back." Smoke? Truth? Meaningless until Kobe signs somewhere.

--We finally placed the little brown cat--one of my dad's patients took the little fella. I got home and he was gone, feeling like I was ten and the dog had died and the parents didn't want to tell me. Anyway...

--In the background right now: MST3K, the San Francisco International episode. The one with like five Urkel host segments in a row. I laugh out loud upon repeat viewings.

Physics test in the morning. Will let you know if degree of difficulty remains low.

BUSY BUSY: Will be three-quarters of the way through summer physics I on Thursday when I take the second exam. I know I said it was easy, but that's just because I studied. It's easier than I thought, put it that way. I'm not getting killed with physics. Still--need to get to work. Easier GPA points don't come this way too often, pardners, so we got to nip this blog post in the bud, Andy!

I'm also getting distracted because my monthly comics packages came in and I finally got my copies of the middle half of the Earth X nonsense, the two volumes of Universe X. It's the middle part of the trilogy, so it goes on and on quite a bit. The art kind of stinks at points; Captain America's death lacks whatever Captain America's death should have. But it continues to wrap up every plotline in the Marvel Universe ever--Micronauts! Moon Knight! Rom: Spaceknight!--so it's fun just in the "thrill of recognition" sense. And it's always readable, even when long-winded. Plus I recommend any comic book that contains Machine Man dragging the Supreme Intelligence across the surface of the moon. Good old Marvel Universey fun.

Boozergate continues. He says he never agreed to anything, just said he wanted to be in Cleveland, and that they were trying to get him on the cheap. Meanwhile Pelinka has dumped him. Boozer really needs to deny this statement, which has been widely attributed to him, if he wants to get on anybody's good side: "If you respect me by not picking up the option, I'll show trust and loyalty to you by signing with you." I know Gordon Gund is megarich and not worthy of that much sympathy, but he's old and frail and blind and it's really hard to not be sympathetic to him in this case. Even if he and Paxson really did pull a boneheaded move.

Only 90 minutes left until Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Clipper.

Little more than that and I have to go to bed. Excuse me, Internet--I must get back to work.

FIVE MINUTES 'TIL MIDNIGHT: Must get blog post out.

11:55. Got nothing.

11:56. Hardball repeat is on in the background. How about that Ron Reagan Jr. speaking at the Dem convention? Wheels keep coming off the Bushwagon.

11:57. Remembered I wanted to post about that somebody said to me they have to watch the HBO shows and I had no night of the week devoted to a set of shows like that and the accompanying time commitment. But then I remember Sunday nights. Aqua Teen. Sealab. Birdman. Brak.

11:58. Was still writing that bit above.

11:59. Countdown to Tuesday. Getting a little less than six hours shuteye tonight. Howard Fineman is the man as far as talking heads go.

12:00. Happy Tuesday. Thank god for gimmick posts.

THE NORMAL BITS & PIECES: Today my brother and his merry band of young Republicans--sponsored by my dad's surgical practice--competed in a hundred-mile bike race from Philadelphia to Mays Landing, NJ. I was getting sweaty just waiting at the finish line, so you can imagine how much water they all lost, and gained, and lost again by the end of hundred miles. (Not kilometers, thank god. U-S-A!) My brother is one skinny dude right now. But it was all for a good cause, fighting against cancer in all its manifestations.

The obvious question is: why should a morbid obesity specialist sponsor a bike team? Well, 1. it's his son's team. And 2. that's about it. There's not a huge overlap between the morbidly obese community and the bicycling community. Apparently, though, some business cards were tossed to spectators on their cross-Jersey trip, so maybe my dad'll get some calls tomorrow from the people inspired to lose weight from the skinny Republicans on the bikes. Not inspired to get on the bikes themselves obviously, but to lose the weight in a more dramatic fashion. That would be nice.

Shaq: still headed to Miami. Going to the team that never got mentioned early on when Dallas was the sure thing because Cubes had all the money and the big contracts and so on. Or the Kings or the Nets for the same reasons. So much for the uniquely entertaining Miami Heat--now we get the feared 60-win (or thereabouts) Miami Heat. So much for the Duncan-Shaq and Yao-Shaq duels; he'll play the Big Z four times a year and that's about it. I'm not so excited about this move (as I said yesterday) because Shaq & Wade is not much different from Shaq & Kobe, except Wade probably doesn't need to be The Man like Kobe does. So maybe having somebody perfectly willing to give the ball to Shaq will be chemically superior to the creative disunity that burned itself out in Staples over the last few seasons.

Kobe: still not a Clipper.

Boozer: still scum. Though perhaps John Paxson was kind of dumb too.

Sealab 2021 is an often mean-spirited, absurdist, and completely hilarious show. I'm going to go watch it. Gawd, do you believe I just went to bed and didn't go to the attic to get the Gruenwald Captain Americas? Priorities, priorities.

WELL THIS HERE IS A REAL BOOZER OF A PICKLE: This Boozer situation--everything I've read suggests that Boozer did something realllly wrong in signing with the Jazz. The facts seem to be that: the Cavs released him from his deal that was paying him 700,000ish, the one he signed as a second-round rookie. Actually, that's the only real established fact. The rest we're getting from the Cavs, while we're getting nothing from Boozer's side, so the story is taking a pro-Cav slant: the Cavs let him go to be nice to him because they wanted him to be happy and wanted him to be on their team for years to come. So they release him with the expectation he will sign with them for 41 million. So he goes and signs with the Jazz for 68 million. That's duplicitous.

Ian Thomsen has nothing good to say about the situation--or Boozer's probably vile agent, Rob Pelinka:

Speculation has held that LeBron James is angry with Paxson for losing Boozer.

Not true, says James' agent, Aaron Goodwin.

"LeBron gave his thumbs up (to the plan enabling Boozer to become a free agent) because he believed his friend just wanted to be taken care of," says Goodwin. "He thought it was great that the Cavs wanted to help him out." Goodwin says that James was "disheartened" when he realized that Boozer was exploiting his free agency by negotiating with other teams.

Goodwin adds -- and I've confirmed this with other sources -- that Gund took personal responsibility for approving the plan to make Boozer a free agent.

"My understanding is that Carlos, his wife and Pelinka all gave their words to Paxson and Gordon Gund that Boozer would re-sign with Cleveland," Goodwin says. "By letting him become a free agent, Gordon was saying, 'I'm doing this to help the Boozer family, not just Carlos.'

"Gordon Gund isn't stupid. He knew there was a chance Boozer would leave if he let him out of his $700,000 contract. But he was [telling] the kid 'I respect you and I care about you and your family.' For him to get slapped in the face is wrong; even as an agent I have to say it's wrong. I talk to Gordon and I hear the devastation in his voice because he's from the old school, where if someone says something to you, you take him at his word.

"What Rob Pelinka did," said Goodwin, "was he figured out a way to get his guy out of his contract. And he lied to do it."

David Aldridge gets all wishy-washy in his take, while pointing out, correctly, that all the facts aren't out yet:

Well, I talked to Boozer a few times last season, and he seemed like a real stand-up guy. That's what the Dookies that I know around the league say about him, too. Said he liked Cleveland. Loved playing for Paul Silas. Said it was just a matter of time before he and LB became All-Stars. But he does his own thinking. When you're from Alaska, you tend to do that, I guess. And he's always said that Karl Malone was his idol and his standard. And I can't get mad at a kid who's offered $68 million and can take care of his family and their family and the family after that.

"But what do you think?" Real asks. "Who's right? Who's wrong?"

I don't know. I don't know.

"Real" is "Real World"--see, he did his column as a dialogue between Real World and Perfect World. But--come on, you can't take care of your family in Alaska for $41 million? You need $68 to really really take care of them? That's not a good reason.

Well, so maybe he really wanted to play for Jerry Sloan like his idol the Mailman. So he had to take the chance to play for Sloan so he could develop like his idol. Fine. I hope he gets what he wants. I hope he enjoys LeBron beating him twice in the finals and never getting that ring too.

As a sidenote, I wonder how the Dookophiles are going to explain this lapse in ethics away. This isn't Brand or Maggette doing this--this is one of their beloved four-year student-athletes.

So. Shaq to the Heat? Aldridge is pretty confident it's going to happen, as everybody in the deal has agreed to it. The Heat give up Caron Butler (who fell off a little after his great first year), Brian Grant (an all-out effort machine with less scoring ability than Ben Wallace) and the strangely resurgent Lamar Odom. Shaq gets to play with Dwayne Wade. It's still a two-man team, and we know how that worked out last year. And I am saddened to see the breakup of the Heat, who were Jazz East last year in terms of scrappiness and hustle and just wanting to play. But Shaq's not in LA anymore, which is what he wanted. His presence doesn't guarantee anything either in the no longer Leastern Conference. The old fart Lakers are suddenly the young, hungry underdog Lakers. And they still don't have Kobe. Imagine being Lakers management and having to sell the celebrities on Lamar Odom? "See, he has a funny beard...he's a real character. You'll like him. No, I'm not from the Clippers--sir? Sir?"

I really hope Kobe signs with the Clippers. Hey, what if he takes his feud with Shaq east and signs with the Knicks? It'll be the return to Knicks-Heat playoffs series nobody was clamoring for.

Always nice to throw out an NBA post out here when there's stuff going on. I assume tomorrow we will return to the normal bits and pieces.

TALES OF A MIDDLING PUBLIC HOSPITAL: I am still stuck between two full time positions, and getting in trouble when one--the one I quit two months ago--isn't getting done. The gravitational pull between the two jobs may tear me part before all is said and done. Well, probably not. But I wonder if I will ever be allowed to take on my new position at this point, and enter the promised land of hassle-free flex time.

An addendum to my women's summer fashion post: those pleated skirts some girls are wearing now--it's not quite a miniskirt, but it is a fashion risk. Plus they look somewhat ridiculous; in a few years time we'll all be wondering why a long, flowing look combined with showing a lot of leg was particularly attractive. Better go with the look at my butt/you can't see my butt dichotomy, ladies. Or just the short shorts if you really need to show some leg.

This Dick Riordan story gets funnier and funnier. Riordan first makes the bizarre statement to a little girl that her name--Isis--means "stupid, dirty girl," something completely incomprehensible when you read it and I can't think of a context where saying that to a 6-year-old at a library is anything but weird. THEN the NAACP jumps in and we hit you-can't-make-this-stuff-up-folks levels of humor:

"It is abusive to use such language toward a child, regardless the gender, race, socioeconomic background or national heritage," Alice A. Huffman, president of the California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement.

"To say that he was only kidding or joking suggests that Mr. Riordan, who is in charge of developing education policy for our children, knows nothing about children and has even less respect for them."

The NAACP and other civil rights groups had planned to attend a Capitol news conference Thursday called by Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton, who was demanding that Riordan step down. Dymally's office abruptly canceled the event, however, after learning that the girl is white.

Because if your name is Isis, you have to be black. Except you're not and you (a different you now) don't even bother to find out before piling on? Isis' mom, by the way, is named Trinity, suggesting that people were naming their kids Trinity before the Matrix came out. I did not know that. But...yeah. When Trinity's little Isis met Dick, hilarity ensued. And Mervyn made a fool of himself.

Now Tim of the Hurting wants us all to dig up our old copies of freakin' Quasar? I hope I still have mine--I don't remember it being much of anything at the time. I will say, though (and I know the Earth X love is kind of my hobbyhorse) that I think Jim Krueger was the last person who cared about the Marvel Universe--at least he bothered to write a respectful farewell to all the old continuity. The Earth X saga is to the Marvel Universe of the 60s through the mid-90s what Alan Moore's Last Superman Story is to the old Superman mythos.

I'm going to the attic to find some comics. Eh? Physics? Yeah, the physics of me flopping down on the couch with a pile of Mark Gruenwald comics, buddy boy.

YOUR QUOTE FROM THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY: William James gonna sing the blues:

Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world's demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.

And they are pivotal human experiences. A process so ubiquitous and everlasting is evidently an integral part of life. "There is indeed one element in human destiny," Robert Louis Stevenson writes, "that not blindness itself can controvert. Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted." And our nature being thus rooted in failure, is it any wonder that theologians should have held it to be essential, and thought that only through the personal experience of humiliation which it engenders the deeper sense of life's significance is reached?

He adds with characteristic healthy-mindedness: "Our business is to continue to fail in good spirits." The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of this world. To our own consciousness there is usually a residuum of worth left over after our sins and errors have been told off -- our capacity of acknowledging and regretting them is the germ of a better self in posse at least. But the world deals with us in actu and not in posse: and of this hidden germ, not to be guessed at from without, it never takes account. Then we turn to the All-knower, who knows our bad, but knows this good in us also, and who is just. We cast ourselves with our repentance on his mercy only by an All-knower can we finally be judged. So the need of a God very definitely emerges from this sort of experience of life.

But this is only the first stage of the world-sickness. Make the human being's sensitiveness a little greater, carry him a little farther over the misery-threshold, and the good quality of the successful moments themselves when they occur is spoiled and vitiated. All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish. Can things whose end is always dust and disappointment be the real goods which our souls require? Back of everything is the great spectre of universal death, the all-encompassing blackness: --

"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the Sun? I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. . . . The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the Sun. . . . Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun: but if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many."

In short, life and its negation are beaten up inextricably together. But if the life be good, the negation of it must be bad. Yet the two are equally essential facts of existence; and all natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.

As you can maybe guess, I had a suboptimal day today. My passage to my new set-your-own-hours-just-work-40-a-week job has been slowed, and is still not complete, and I am supposed to do the duties of the new job and the old job as well. I have heard that, in the business world, if you're going for a promotion you better have somebody to replace you. Apparently this is also true in the world of office suites in middling public hospitals.

But--HEY. There's a bright side. The physics test was absurdly simple. On Wednesday one of my professors (who I was begging a rec letter from) said if I could get my MCAT up about 3 points, combined with my GPA, I'd have a much broader range of schools to realistically pick from. And he said not to settle for the local med school, which I'd love to do but he dislikes the way my college serves as a funnel to the local med school. Doesn't like people limiting themselves because they think they're not good enough, either. I appreciate his points, but I am concerned with the financial burdens of going somewhere nonlocal. I mean, it's like low vs. middle six figures, right? Wotta racket.

Why George Bush sucks worse than a Hoover.

An appreciation of the vast Mark Gruenwald run on Captain America, one of my favorite superhero stories from my youth. An honest enough appreciation to admit the later issues of the run weren't so good. But the first half, when Cap was fighting Scourge and ULTIMATUM and the Serpent Society and a bunch of other groups, and then the Red Skull popped out and revealed he'd been behind it all? Really good stuff, especially when you could ride your bike down to the CVS and check the racks and be happy when the doublesized issue of Captain America that had the Skull's return finally came out. Back when comics still had a little bit of steam left as a mass medium. Now you'll get whatever that mass manga is and maybe a Jughead's Double Digest in the CVS.

Tim also put out this great little paragraph:

I believe the Marvel Universe died the day Mark Gruenwald did, because he was the last person who really cared about it as a living, cohesive organism. Right before he died the MU was split into a number of different competing fiefdoms – the X-Books, the Spider books, the Avengers titles, the "darker" Marvel Edge books, and a couple others that weren’t as important to the universe proper (such as the licensed properties and the 2099 books). The fact is, continuity was never really about a constant referencing of everything that had gone on before in an anal-retentive way (which is what folks like Joe Quesada tend to think) so much as the sense that every book in the MU exists in the same space and time. Stan and Jack and Steve always used to have the Fantastic Four meeting the Avengers or Spider-Man meeting Dr. Strange, and it gave the books an immediacy because there was a sense of reality there that had never existed in superhero books before.Not only did the heroes meet, but they seemed to be palpably the same characters when they appeared in other books, not just bit players with fake Spider-Man masks on. Those kind of things give the reader a visceral thrill – stuff like "hey, that guy with the redhead on his arm while the Avengers are flying by may just look like a punk but he’s really the Amazing Spider-Man!" or "boy, wouldn’t it flip the FF out to know that their blind lawyer was actually Daredevil, the Man Without Fear?" When these things stopped happening as often, it got less fun to hang around the Marvel Universe – and for a while there it had stopped altogether. Nowadays there are a few writers who try to keep that kind of fun alive – the dude who writes She-Hulk definitely tries, as does Brian Michael Bendis – but it just isn’t the same. The fact is that the Manhattan in New X-Men is not the same Manhattan as the one in Avengers or the one in Spider-Man, and that realization kills a little bit of the childlike joy I used to find when diving into a superhero book. That’s a big part of what the fans say when they refer to continuity as a dead issue, and as far as that goes they’re 100% right.

Via Neilalien. And more from Tim on the end of Marvel continuity.

Tomorrow: my soul is unfree for a standard workday, give or take a few hours depending on my mood. My mood--maybe she not be so good tomorrow, you know? So maybe I take a few hours' leave. Okay? Okay.

IN PRAISE OF CURRENT YOUNG WOMEN'S SUMMER FASHIONS: The spaghetti straps with the butt-emphasizing jeans? Or with the butt-emphasizing pants that are a little baggy in the legs? Good golly gosh. You used to read jokes in your older science fiction books about some poor slob coming back from the future and it's horrible, a police state run by extraterrestrials, but there's some quip like, "But at least the miniskirts are back." But the miniskirts aren't coming back, gentlemen, and you don't want them back. They were ridiculous--no woman could sit down in those things. They were unsubtle. They were products of their time, but that was the sexual revolution and it's over. Nobody wants to look like a hooker anymore. The butt-emphasizing pants give you the butt and preserve the butt's modesty at the exact same time. They are the perfect pants for our post-feminist age. It's "post-feminism" because feminism won, by the way.

Anyway, the physics isn't that bad thus far--it seems like a math class, and I'm generally good with math. I did all the homework, I undestood it, the practice test seemed reasonable. I'm okay for tomorrow.

And today I secured a couple of rec letters for med school. I swallowed my vast fear and it was easy. My professors were understanding. They do it all the time. I had nothing to worry about as far as this part of the application process goes.

Comrade Blow Hard retired again. I tend to think he'll be back pretty quick, but he does want to get his vast propaganda epic done. Good luck, Jer. Your people need a beacon to codify the rightness of their daily lives under your rule.

Eric McErlain on why Japanese baseball stinks.

Edwards was a good pick. Edwards was the obvious pick. Well--more like Gephart was the wrong pick. Dick vs. Dick would've been a wash, but Edwards vs. Dick is no contest. Edwards is the kind of guy Dick hires to argue things in courtrooms where Dick's presence tends to turn off jurors, as well as the way the temperature drops when Dick enters the room and you can suddenly hear the wailing of damned souls. Because he's....evil....yeah. And he only uses one side of his mouth to talk and I don't think he has Bell's palsy or anything.

Good night, sweet Internet.

IDENTITY CRISIS #1: There are two ways to look out this particular comic book, which I am only reading now because I get my comics in the mail:

One is, that the death of Sue Dibny was a hit by DC editorial, like the deaths of Jason Todd and Supergirl, done to send a message to the fanboys that they better buy this comic book--or else! Or else we won't kill anyone else and you won't buy any more of our crappy comic books. Brad Meltzer was even given a hitlist from DC editorial letting him know which beloved DC heroes he could bump off. So this was fictional homicide, a corporate property killed by the Time-Warner hivemind just because it could.

But second--look, it was done well. I'd be first in line with the "Dark Dibny" grim 'n' gritty Elongated Man jokes, but I don't think that's exactly what's happening in Identity Crisis--this isn't about Ralph putting on a vest and some robogloves and going out as the Shadow Malleable for VENGEANCE! Meltzer gives us every reason to care about Ralph and Sue's relationship--well, as many as he can in the few pages setting up her death. And there's clearly a ***mystery*** involved here (with no nose-twitching--that's the Grim Ralph part) involving Zatanna and Ollie and some of the older Leaguers that if you were Kurt Busiek you'd know what it was right away, but if you're not it's an honest-to-gosh mystery rooted in DC's fictional past, and even if you were Busiek you think to yourself. "Say--I wonder what Meltzer is doing with all this. Perhaps this isn't the craven stunt it appears to be." Plus killing a minor character like Sue (the wife of another minor character) fits in with the series' use of D-list villains like the Calculator and others--I read an interview with Meltzer where he talked about the challenge of using a crappy villain credibly, so I know there's more. Plus Luthor's awwwesome old green-and-purple battlesuit has made an appearance. I dunno. I like it.

Plus Giffen and DeMatteis can bring Sue back in the next Formerly Known As The Justice League deal. When they make Ralph funny again.

I apologize to those who, for a lack of vocabulary, found the above incomprehensible. I apologize to those who got all the references too. Tomorrow--physics worry, probably.

WEEKEND WRAPUP: I ate a lot. Oh--something unusual. Let's see...

--Did my physics homework that I've been putting off (it's my usual school/work thing of going to class then work, and doing the schoolwork on the weekends.) It all made sense to me as I did it. It is always questionable, though, if this understanding can be applied to a test-taking situation.

--Read The Illuminatus Trilogy after one of the Reason dorks recommended it. I'll tell you what--it does not have a terrible coherent plot. What it does do (and this is really great) is create this sort of world where everything you thought was really really true is not true. And--worse yet--the things you were assuming to be true are lies told to you to keep you enslaved. Pornographic sex and massive drug consumption are offered as ways out of the traps the Illuminati are setting, but even when you get on the other side things still aren't hugely better. The world is all madness and we've known that for generations, and the Trilogy illustrates this by lumping a whole mess of conspiracy theories into one volume. And there are some really funny Ayn Rand jokes, and a great James Bond parody, and it, overall, oozes 70sness from every word. The book does have the overused rich industrialist/con man/guru who is in way too much science fiction, though.

--Missed playing any skeeball at all due to the above two items.

--No hot chicks at the hotel this year. My family rents the same motel every year for our family confab shindig and last year there was this tall, gorgeous Asian girl with this little wiry white guy--and his parents! (I assume.) Few words were exchanged between gorgeous Asian girl and wiry white guy, leading to endless speculation on the true nature of their relationship. I was thinking "extremely high-priced call girl" but for the parents' presence. Then I went on to "mail order bride" due to the fact that wiry white guy always walked a bit behind gorgeous Asian girl and took in all her bags (and those of his parents) while she sat in their room and seemed vaguely worshipful of her. Contrarian logic, I know, but could these not be seen as the actions of a wiry white man whose intimidation by women was so significant (but his need for them so deep) that it could only be overcome in the marketplace? Yes. Yes, they could be seen that way. Would not a woman who had been promised a better life in a foreign land now make sure she had one? Yes, she might.

I should add that most of the endless speculation was on my part. I am a sad, sad man. And now you, oh Internet, are that much sadder.