“And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time” — “What Sarah Said” - Death Cab For Cite

Time. It is something we all have that we seem to waste, or not have enough of. The amount we get is the same really. We get a lifetime. In the end, what we do or do not do with it defines us. I’ve become more aware of this over the last year. As I’ve seen those around me change over the course of the last twelve months. As I’ve seen the path my life has taken. It’s scary to realize that time, and life moves on if you notice or not.

I’ve seen my mother get sicker over the last year. More than I’ve seen her in the past. And it’s come to me that one day soon she may not be here anymore. I’ve always known that she’d die one day, but it was always in “the future.” I fear that the future may be coming sooner than I am prepared for. I just hope that I’ve been able to make her proud. And I hope I won’t regret anything I’ve done when the day comes.

I’ve also seen my uncle get closer and closer to the end. He’s been sick for a long time, but I feel that soon he’ll pass on. And I fear then, not for myself, but for my aunt. I’ve not spoken with either of them really in the last year. She has become someone I don’t really care to deal with, but I still fear. What is left of her life will unravel completely without him, and then I don’t know what will become of her. I know I should call them, but old wounds sometimes never heal. But time may take away the chance I’ve always thought would be there to reconcile.

And then there is E. I’ve come to love her deeply over the last months. She makes me feel good about myself, and I simply find myself wanting her to be happy. To the point I will do silly things she asks just to see her laugh. I want to grow with her, so see her fulfill her dreams, and to have her there as I continue with mine. And yet, I fear I sense her slipping away. I just hope she does not, and I am not sure what I could do to stop it anyway. I question myself then, if she wants to go should I try to stop her? Isn’t loving someone also being able to let them go and find their happiness? I don’t want her to go, but I also know I could not make her stay.

Time. I feel it slipping and moving against me. Deciding for me the things I cannot, or will not. Taking my plans and doing what it will to them even against my own prayers and hopes. And sometimes, sometimes I feel myself wanting to escape. To find somewhere with a clear meaning and enough time. I fear that the time I will get, a lifetime, won’t be enough although it should be. I know though, what I will do as things do move. I’ll go on and live my life. But I can’t help wanting some things to stay as they are or were.

This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus–after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

Technorati Tags poem, walt whitman

The album is very much a Max Richter album.  It has this bittersweet feel tinged with hope, longing, and a quietness about it.  So far my favorite track is the second one - “H In New England”  with In Louisville At 7 and Cathodes also really good.  Cathodes is a bit of controlled chaos, it sounds like an orchestra just going a little nuts.  There seems to be more piano used on this album than on the Blue Notebooks, to good effect.   In this one he intermixes classical and electronic pieces.  In some ways it reminds me of the Ghosts albums from NiN but with more structure.  The juxtaposition of the piano and the electronic is in places somewhat jarring.  But the pieces which mix both together are interesting and powerful.

In comparison to The Blue Notebooks this one has more, shorter tracks.  There is also no spoken word interludes and he seems to use piano and other instruments a bit more.  The jury is still out for me on which I prefer as they are in essence very different albums.  They do each inspire similar feelings though.   Some sadness, some hope, longing, quietness.  For some reason his music makes me think of late nights, early mornings, and days that start out grey but end up with blue skies.

If I were to give it a star rating so far it is a five star album for me.  Yes, it is that good I think.  I am not sure if iTunes just got an early release but the release date is set for August 25th according to the official site.  I guess I got lucky.

Technorati Tags 24 postcards in Full Color, classical, electronic, max richter, music

Tonight I decided to make a fairly quick and simple dinner. With that in mind I picked up some Tilapia and made some rice and a nice arugula salad with it. It was really good.

The rice was pretty straightforward, I made is with some Goya Sazon. The salad was just arugula with some Feta cheese and a red wine vinaigrette. The fancy bit was around the Tilapia. One thing about cooking Tilapia is that it is a delicate fish. One has to be careful since it can break apart easily in the pan. Tilapia can be baked, fried, or cooked in a pan. I decided to pan-fry it. Since my cooking tends to be informal I will just write about what I did, I apologize in advance for any lack of preciseness in times or amount.

Ingredients

• One green bell pepper, chopped into bite size pieces.
• One small tomato, chopped and seeded.
• Two teaspoons (4 cloves) of chopped, marinated garlic.
• The juice of one-half a lemon
• 2 pieces of Tilapia
• Olive oil for cooking
• Flour for dredging
• Arrowroot or flour for thickening a sauce
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• White cooking wine, about a 1/4 of a cup.

Preparation

For the fish each piece should be cut in half and seasoned with some salt and pepper. The vegetables should be cleaned and chopped. It’s important to prepare ahead of time; this makes the cooking go so much smoother.

Directions

Heat up a pan with some olive oil on medium. The plan here is to saute the peppers, garlic, and tomatoes. Once the pan is to temperature start cooking the peppers. After about a minute I’ll add salt and pepper to the peppers and continue cooking until about five minutes have passed. Then add all the garlic and cook for about another minute. At this point add the tomatoes. After four more minutes remove the vegetables from the pan. If the pan needs more, oil add it now to cook the fish.

Slightly lower the heat for the pan. Before cooking the fish dredge it lightly in flour and add the piece to the pan. Cook as many pieces in the pan as is possible. Since this is four pieces of fish, I can do the whole thing in one go. That works the best. Cook the fish until done. The outside should have a light golden color on both sides. It should only take a minute or two each side as the fish should cook quickly. Once cooked set the fish aside and return the veggies to the pan. Turn the heat up to medium-high and add the lemon and white wine. At this point scrape up the leaving in the pan with a spatula. I use a wooden one just for this. Move everything around to coat the vegetables well and let it cook down for a short time. Once it’s reduced about a quarter add the flour/arrowroot to thicken the sauce and let it cook about a minute or so. Once done remove from heat and serve the fish with the veggies and sauce on top.

It came out with a very nice flavor, the lemon/wine sauce added a nice flavor to the fish and the vegetables. You could put a bit of aioli or something else on top if you wanted. The best part of this dish for me was that I used what was in the fridge. I picked up the fish, but the rest was already there. These are the best meals I think. Maybe I’ll start posting about other meals.

Technorati Tags cooking, fish, meal, tilapia

He was a good man. In many ways, he was the best of us. I aspire to be like him. Growing up I always looked up to him. I wanted to be like him. In some ways, he knew me better than I knew myself at that age. It occurred to me that losing him was like losing my big brother.

He taught me many things. He taught me to ski. He got me the Stephen King book “The Gunslinger” that opened up whole worlds for me. He took me sailing for the first, and only time in my life. He took me ice skating on the lake, and even let me play with his stuff when I was little. When he went off to college, I’d sometimes stay over my aunt’s house. I’d sleep in his room.

He’s been gone for some time now. I remember when I knew he was sick. I remember seeing him so thin, so thin, and tired looking. He looked as if he had aged twenty years. And no one talked about it, we all just pretended that he was fine, the same old Michael. It’s amazing how a whole family can deny something because of taboo and stigma. Michael you see was dying from AIDS. Our lives had taken their own turns by then, and I did not get to talk to him much. He had moved to St. Louis, and I moved even further west - to San Diego. And so life went on.

Some time later I got a call from my mother. Michael had died, and they’d had the funeral. I was hurt, and I was angry. How could they not tell me? How could they wait? His passing changed everything though. My aunt and uncle were devastated. Good Catholics all their life they suddenly found they could not bury their son at the local church. He had the “gay disease,” it did not matter that he was not gay; it was simply the association. I had left the church long ago, but whatever faith I had in the good it could do died a bit more when I found out.

And my aunt, the thread of her life frayed completely. She was always headstrong and a bit obnoxious at times, but this sent her spiraling. She became bitter, angry, spiteful, and cruel. She drank more and more. She began isolating herself through her behavior. Herself and my uncle. I miss them, I’ve not spoken with them in over a year because of that. Time is coming to call them, I don’t want the choice made for me.

I miss him, and I think of him often. He left behind a beautiful wife and daughter. His wife, Wendy, is HIV+ but has it under control with medication. His daughter is perfectly healthy. She is like him in many ways; I can see him in her. And though at times it has been painful in the end it is amazing. I see him living on in her, and realize that although he is gone he will never be forgotten. In his daughter, in Alex, I see all that was good in him reborn.

And I know I will always miss him, but I know he lived a good life and that he had what we all get. He had a lifetime. I just hope that when my time comes I have someone who can think the same thing about me.

What The Numbers Say

If you look at the wiki page on religion in the United States, it shows the inherent conflict in the numbers as reported. You have numbers ranging from 75%, 85%, down to 60% believing in a god/deity of some kind. And when you get into practicing the numbers get even wilder. You have numbers from 41% to 26% to 21%. Why the disparity? It’s like when you ask a kid of they do drugs, most will lie so they don’t look bad. Societal pressures are a powerful thing, and we all want to look like good, upstanding citizens usually. If you are a person who believes in a god of some kind but is not such a good, outstanding member attendance-wise then lying about it in a poll may alleviate some guilt. You also have people who will lie to mess with the poll, and people who will exaggerate their actual behavior to look better. This is why these numbers are probably inflated.

Nothing to See Here Folks

Why do I say this? Well looking at the current state of affairs in the US today bears this out. If you look at the laws of the land and, the various court decisions that have been handed down you find something reassuring. They are overwhelmingly unbiased towards religions and heavily biased towards limiting their interaction with the government. They tend to reinforce the separation of church and state.

If you look at the benchmark issues it clearly shows this to be true. Abortion is still legal and widely available for those who choose to have them. Gay rights is still advancing, look at California and the recent same-sex marriage decision. Creationism is not widely taught as science, the attempts to do so have tended to have those choosing this to be tossed out by the public. There are also other, smaller signs of this to be found in daily life.

There is still no religious test to holding office from a legal standpoint. It is debatable if a declared atheist could win a large election, but that has nothing to do with the law itself. The so called Blue Laws, while prevalent in the south still are mostly being rolled back elsewhere. And if you look at the Pledge of Allegiance, the god line was added to be anti-communist, not pro religion. Now while all this is good; of course, it means we cannot just take it for granted, like any right this must be protected. In the case of the US, the largest protection is the supreme law of the land - the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution itself has two provisions regarding religion.

From the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

From Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

These two parts clearly state that there can be no test and have done much to prevent any religious institution from taking over or from being taken over by the government.

This is why when looking at the state of affairs today I don’t have a great worry about the US turning into a theocracy. While we must remain vigilant there is no immediate threat of the religious right taking over really. Anyone saying this is either trying to drum up ratings in the media, delusional, or trying to whip up some supporters.

Technorati Tags fundies, media, Politics, religion, usa

It began with the recent decision to start messing around with P2P traffic. They are doing this by sending what is called a TCP reset packet to people they decide are using P2P software. What this does is slow down traffic to that user. I am not a huge user of any P2P stuff so it should not affect me right? Well it seems that it has a bleed over affect on other types of traffic in general. For me, I saw problems with HTTP and mail access. This culminated in a suspicious outage a couple of months back that affected HTTP, gaming, and access to various sites. Comcast never fully explained this, but it also coincided with their enabling the P2P throttling. Comcast has since backed off on this since they are now being sued over it.

I’ve also had a number of unsolvable problems with my service. They insist it is not the modem, but the connection seems to reset itself multiple times a day. Often when I start really using the connection say for playing WoW. I’ve replaced lines, removed a splitter and they say nothing is wrong. I could have them replace the modem, but I am dropping the service instead.

The final straw for me has been a combination of bandwidth capping and their blocking of port 25 outgoing for anyone not using their specific servers. The bandwidth cap is not the problem in and of itself. It is Comcast’s vagueness on what the cap actually is. How can you keep yourself from going over if they are not forthcoming on what it is? Bigger for me is the port 25 blockage though. Port 25 is the port used to send mail to other people. If you use gmail, or some other service you may be using their mail servers to send. With Comcast this is no longer possible. They have blocked all outgoing traffic except to their own mail servers. This is a bad decision used only to force business customers to pay to use them I think. Luckily there are workarounds though.

These technical problems are a big issue, but the poor customer service overall has left me with a bad taste in my mouth over using them. I will switch to FIOS I think. Sorry Comcast, but you are not meeting my needs and are rather costly.

I myself have faced discrimination which I find rather ironic. Many people mistake my race based on whatever preconception they have. I’ve been called things, had service attempted to be refused, and had to deal with other random bullshit. I’ve also seen the flip side where people would confide in me the nastiest, most racist comments and notions. I can recall one manager where I worked in my early twenties making comments about “those jews.” Whenever I see this stuff, I am reminded of the poem by Langston Hughes - “Let America Be America Again” and I wonder about the ideal. I think about what we, as a society at large, strive to be versus what we really are. While we’ve come a long way there is still a long way to go. One of my largest hopes for Obama winning is the chance to move us all closer to the ideal. I’ve included the poem below.

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!

Technorati Tags barack, hughes, langston, let america be america again, obama, Politics, racism

Just relaxing on a wet Sunday and some things came to mind that needed saying.

As anyone who reads this blog with any frequency knows, I recently met someone. She affects me in ways I did not think I could be affected anymore. In ways, I thought I no longer wanted to be affected. The way life seems to work I guess none of this should be a real surprise.

“She walks in beauty, Like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.” - Lord Byron

So there I was just doing my thing when a random response t o something I twittered caught my eye, and perhaps a little more right at that moment. This is where life kicked in and played a happy joke on me. One moment I am doing my thing, and the next I am finding myself drawn in. But this is nothing new.

She is a dedicated person; she has a calling. Here it is medicine. For this, I respect and admire her. It is not an easy thing she is doing, that she wants. It takes time, drive, and a dedication to something other than yourself. Most people cannot, or will not do this. She recently got an acceptance into a M.D./PhD program. So I hope everyone can join me in saying congratulations to her.

Congratulations hon!!!

I am so happy for her, and something else occurred to me while I was thinking about this. I had to ask myself a question. I know she will be very busy. She will need to work hard, to work long hours. It will be the main driving point of her life. And so I asked myself, is this something that I can accept? Can I, will I be able to and understand this, will it be OK?

The answer came before I even finished asking the question. There really is only one answer for me. Yes. Yes, it will be fine. It might not always be easy; I don’t expect it to be. But, the best things in life are never easy.

“Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third” — Marge Piercy

I may not ever fully understand why she chose medicine. I am not sure I even need to. But I do accept it, and would not have it any other way. What I can, and do understand is the need though. To be or do something. That decision to pursue it, to work so hard, to dedicate so much to something. That I can understand. That I respect and admire. It just makes me admire her more.

Many people cannot accept, or understand such a need. I don’t really understand how one could not. If you care about a person, if you love them then how could you not accept who, and what they are? I guess if you never understood then maybe I can see it. But do people blind themselves so much that they willfully refuse to see? Perhaps they do. Their needs, what they are willing to accept may not be the same.

For me though it’s about not only accepting but also about faith and trust. One should be able to put enough trust, enough faith into what exists with the other person that it would not be a problem. Maybe that is the hardest part in the end. Finding that faith, finding that trust.

In regards to her though it is more of a question of how could I not. Everything about her draws me in. It began as these things often do with a small gesture. And from that simple moment it grew, changes, and blossomed into something more. I can describe her. She is smart and beautiful. She makes me smile. she makes me laugh. She can be driven, and serious, and grouchy, and grumpy. But in the end she is simply who she is. That is all she needs to be. That is all I want her to be. How could I want more?

Technorati Tags falling, her, love