Σ

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:34:57 GMT

http://www.yamato.com/~mikeb/Power/PowerFTP.EXE

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 05:49:43 GMT

take two...

Graduation Speech

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:26:52 GMT

As requested, I have posted the speech I gave at Berkley High School's commencement on June 5, 2006. I have restored the previously omitted "list" section in this version.

********************************************

A friend of mine once told me that it’s completely ridiculous to be afraid of moving forward; of college and career; of growing up; *pause* of the future! In fact, the thought of it thrilled him! It meant following passions and realizing aspirations of the sort that children can’t possibly even imagine! I was a sophomore then, and so unsure of myself I could barely utter a response. I blew steam at a sodium-yellow streetlamp halo. And to be concise, I was terrified.
*pause*

I knew then as I know now that what we call the ends of things are the worst of times — laden with a bittersweet melancholy that gets in our eyes nearly occluding vision. As we graduate we say our goodbyes to many good friends, teachers, and other mentors. The doors of Berkley High School close behind us, and we feel some far more essential and impermeable slam shut on our childhoods. They force us to face an uncertain tomorrow, devoid of childish safety; carefree excitement. And!...
*pause and smile thoughtfully*
...as we so often notice, the diametric opposite is equally and simultaneously true — for this is among the best of times as we anticipate a bright and thrilling future. We’re here tonight to celebrate those things that are good and desirable about moving forward: the yield of hard work, knowing and accomplishing goals and objectives, meeting personal and academic challenges, succeeding. *pause* When the door slammed behind me, it sent me walking down railroad tracks into a golden sunset. I pointed and stared at the singularity where the railroad tracks met at the horizon — that distant and hypothesized destination where their parallelism fell to pieces. That was where I had to go. And this is what I saw:

A little boy sitting on a bed and holding broom to his chin like a violin, sawing on it with a stick. But he’s a man leading a symphony; performing the Prelude to Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite. Photonegatives of a little girl singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in a sweltering gymnasium or “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” beautifully...to make Judy Garland cry. Or another with golden hair and a golden costume panicking before her first recital. Now a confident young woman on stage as Audrey or Glenda captivating her audience with grace and excellence.

It’s like seeing the same people and the same places through many different kinds of magic glass varying in refractive index. When you look upon them, its nearly impossible to see only in the present. Yeah, you see them as they are now, but also every other way they ever have been. And no matter which versions you choose to look at they are obscured — blurred by too many images and ideas and emotions radiating from them all at once.

*omit*
[And things seem to run together in ways we never thought they would like great compilations of poetry:

8 perfect semesters
1,783 cups of coffee
170 concerts
46 full notebooks
68 football games
2 sunrises
A million tears
41 novels
23 passing trains
37 essays
20 manilla folders
16 pictures on my wall
A few million heartbeats
134 exams
1000 mistakes and
0 regrets
79 long walks
28 textbooks
200 sunsets
400 sleep debts
*pause*]

*emphatically* Most importantly, we’re here tonight in reverence of a process: a perfect pattern of events that unites past and future ceaselessly and inextricably — a chain; a photo album; an infinite series. We’re here because of the indisputable value and continuity of knowledge and learning which permeate that pattern. We’re here tonight because of what Dr. Julia McMillan, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine highlights as the unbroken chain of learning that must characterize education. Truly, anyone who is instrumental in helping a student learn and achieve goals forms an important link. But the strength of the chain depends upon each student in every class ensuring that their expectations are high enough.

Or, in the words of Kahlil Gibran, “If [the teacher] is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind...so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge...and in his understanding of the earth.”
*pause*

Learning for its inherent value is what the true scientist or naturalist celebrates. This means seeking truth and striving to understand all processes and aspects of the human condition and natural world. It isn’t about the bell ringing at the end of the school day. It’s about the question that was answered for you because you stayed five minutes longer. It isn’t about coloring in the scantron sheet first thing in the morning. It’s about the last things that were running through your mind as you were drifting off to sleep at 3 A.M., textbook on the bedstead. It is not about checking the boxes; taking the right classes; passing the tests; becoming specifically the scientists, accountants, mechanics, violinists, and engineers that we think we should see in our future. It’s about learning everything that you can possibly learn for the rest of your life.

This is more important than exactly where we go and what we become.

We are living in a world that is riddled with hate and uncertainty: an age in which war, collectivism, and technological innovation have weakened the more traditional belief in progress through true learning and destroyed the generally accepted standards for determining the good and the true.

But it is this that will serve as a touch point or a frame of reference for decision making, standards, and ethics. It is this that will allow us to understand, to open our hearts, to open our minds, to accept, to include, to tolerate, to love, to see another person’s perspective, to see another nation’s perspective...
*pause*

To each and every one of you: our administrators; our teachers and counselors; our parents; our alumni; the classes behind us I am honored to say thank you on behalf of the class of 2006. You have helped us along our way to a date that once seemed impossibly distant.

But “life is short and the art long; the occasion instant; experiment perilous; decision difficult.” Hippocrates, Aphorism.

Thank you.

-Michael Brendan Doyle

Behavior Symposium

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 03:00:06 GMT

I am posting a copy of my paper on Chimpanzees that I wrote for the zoology behavior symposium during my sophomore year. I think the writing is awkward, but the general organization and approach was effective. The paper only lost a point for missing a few parenthetical citations (which it wasn't).

The detailed study of the chimpanzee, or Pan troglodytes, is practically a given when one considers the fascinating and complex characteristics of the creature’s behavior (Goodall, 1986). Recalling a “tailless monkey” in appearance, the chimpanzee is classified with the apes, such as the gorilla (9, 2004), which bear striking behavioral and morphological similarities to humankind. In fact, the anatomy of the chimpanzee’s brain is more like that of the human brain than that of any other creature. Herein lies the source of much of the fascination that zoologists have toward chimpanzees and related primates — by understanding the chimpanzee and its behavior, man will be aided in the long endeavor to comprehend his own behaviors, and their origins in the primate lineage (Goodall, 1986).
Lineage and Life History
It is widely accepted today that humans and chimpanzees are of common lineage (though a common misconception is that humans actually evolved from chimpanzees). Genetic evidence shows that the line which gave rise to humans originated from that which gave rise to chimpanzees about 5 to 6 million years ago. Thus, it is correct to say that chimpanzees and humans evolved from a common ancestor. This species, which gave rise to the australopithecines, is thought to have been similar enough to modern day chimps to be placed into the genus Pan. About 2.5 million years ago, the chimpanzee line split again resulting in the divergence of chimps and their close cousins the bonobos. Bonobos appear to have evolved faster than chimpanzees, since they show more differences from gorillas. Due to this, the chimpanzee is likely a better behavior model for the common ancestor than the bonobo is (behaviors the bonobo has gained since the split are less likely to have been present in the ancestor). Instead, it is hypothesized that the behaviors that humans and chimpanzees share (ie. cooperative hunting, raiding, cultural traditions, male-bonding, and male dominance) were also present in their common ancestor (Wrangham, 2004).
Three subspecies of Chimpanzees are recognized today: P. troglodytes verus, P. troglodytes troglodytes, and P. troglodytes schweinfuthis. All are generally dark in color, varying from light brown to deep black, with lighter hair surrounding the face (Finney, 2004). The face itself is usually hairless, and is capable of a wide rage of expressions, which have great importance in chimpanzee communication (5, 2004). The arms are longer than the legs (Finney, 2004), permitting a form of ground locomotion using the soles of the feet and the knuckles of the forelimbs. The hands bear long fingers and an opposable thumb which allow for gross and fine object manipulation. Additionally, each foot bears an opposable big toe, which is useful for grasping. Adults typically grow to be 2.5-3 feet long, and weigh 125-175 pounds, though males may be slightly larger (5, 2004).
Chimpanzees live in social communities of 15-80 animals, but no definite group leader is acknowledged.. The males are arranged in a loose dominance hierarchy The group spends sufficient time in trees, where brachiation becomes their primary means of locomotion. Diurnal by nature, chimpanzees also spend nights sleeping in trees, in which nests are built (9, 2004). Mating is non-seasonal, and births are single after a nine-month gestation period. Individuals are weaned after three years of life, and are mature at the age of 10 or 11. Females undergo an estrous period during adolescence, which is marked by promiscuity, and, at times, migration to a new community. Chimpanzees reach old age after approximately 33 years, and have a typical life span of 40-45 years (5, 2004).
Though a great deal of their food comes from vegetation, chimpanzees are omnivorous. Vegetable food sources are abundant during the wet season, and include fruit and leaves, seeds, flowers, and bark. Foraging is done in small parties, with approximately 50% of waking hours spent feeding, and another 13% spent moving between sources. Hunting is mainly opportunistic, though chimpanzees are effective predators. Like foraging, hunting is carried out in groups. Hunters do not seem to consciously cooperate with one another, but their behaviors are directed toward the same goal. Small animals like insects, mice, rats, and birds are taken as food, in addition to medium sized mammals like bush pigs and small primates (Goodall, 1986). Chimpanzees are food themselves for leopards, baboons, and large snakes, though their foremost enemy is man (9, 2004).
Range and Biome
The Chimpanzees’ range covers the part of western and central Africa north of the Zaire River. This area includes diverse biomes ranging from dense rainforest, to deciduous woodland, to mixed savannah. In general, chimps will live in any of these places, as long as they have access to evergreen, fruit-bearing trees (5, 2004). The range spans from Senegal to Tanzania, and presently includes 21 countries, though chimps were originally found in 25. Their numbers have decreased over the last half-century from millions of individuals to an estimated 200,000 (Finney, 2004).
The chimpanzee is most notably a rainforest creature. Within this biome, the chimp may move between strata levels, moving up into the canopy and understory to sleep and forage, and also passing much time on the forest floor. The upper-middle strata team with plant and animal life, especially where sunlight comes through. The canopy consists of the high points of the non-emergent. Chimpanzees share this level with a diverse variety of birds, and arboreal monkeys. The trees are laden with orchids and huge vines called lianas (Newman, 1990). The rainforest biome is characterized by year-round high temperatures, and seasonal precipitation, though the “dry” months are never marked by drought stress. Soil is characteristically acidic, and endures a high degree of chemical weathering due to high rainfall. There is little leaf-litter, since decomposition is very rapid. Vegetation is extremely dense in pre-climax regions, while a mature forest is relatively open. (This is due to the dense leaf canopy in the climax forest, which suppressers lower plant growth by blocking sunlight). Emergent trees may reach heights of 60 meters tall, while canopy trees may be 30 meters tall or taller. Most trees are evergreen, and bear leaves with special adaptations like drought-resistance and drip tips to withstand exposure to the sun and rain in the canopy. The highest plant diversity on the planet is found in the rainforest with thousands of species of trees, as well as ferns and monocots. Similarly, animal diversity is also highest in this biome. Well-represented mammalian groups include cats, antelope, primates, sloths, and tree shrews. Over 500 species of birds are present, and lizards, snakes, and frogs also display a high level of diversity. Large animals are found less often in pre-climax regions, since thick vegetation hinders locomotion. Most animals are highly specialized due to intense predator-prey interactions. Prey animals have well adapted anti-predator mechanisms (ie. excellent camouflage in most small animals) due to a high predator diversity (Paulson, 1996).
Behavior and Learning in Social Context
The chimpanzee exhibits a broad spectrum of behaviors with great importance to survival, and integral function in group living. Many of these behaviors (ie. calls, positions, and gestures) are inborn characteristics, which are modified by chimpanzees’ excellent learning capabilities. Learning, which chimpanzees achieve through interaction with their social and physical environments, allows chimpanzees the ability to place their innate tendencies into appropriate sequences and contexts (Goodall, 1986).
Ethologists define learning as a process of adaptive change in individual behavior as the result of experience. The learning capabilities of the chimpanzee are unparalleled throughout much of the animal kingdom. A great deal of the chimpanzee’s learning takes place through an interaction between trial and error and observation, but studies have shown that chimpanzees are also capable of reasoning and high cognitive powers. Through perception and observation, the young chimpanzee associates certain stimuli with significant ideas (conditioning), and ignore unimportant stimuli (habituation). For example, a chimp in a laboratory becomes excited when he hears a key click in the lock of his cage, because he has learned to associate this with food, while he displays no reaction to a banging noise coming from a neighboring cage. In the wild, associations like this allow the chimp to create a sort of “mental map” of all of the stimuli in their environment. As a chimpanzee grows, the process of social facilitation also plays an important role in its learning. This process of observing other members of the social group teaches the chimpanzee the appropriate context for its behaviors. For example, a young chimpanzee observes a specific call vocalized by adults who are feeding. The observing animal learns is likely to join in the activity, and use the specific call in feeding context in the future. Observation of other community members also allows the chimpanzee to learn via local enhancement, in which the chimp is made aware of resources in its immediate environment. If a chimpanzee see a companion run to a tree bearing fruit, for example, his attention will be directed toward the food source and he will know to visit it in the future (Goodall, 1986).
It is hypothesized that social living, in chimps and other animals, evolved due to the interplay between environmental pressures and animals’ adaptive strategies to cope with them. Clearly then, group living has powerful benefits to survival. Obviously, an individual may benefit directly by the aid of another member of the social group, but this raises the question of how animals who often fill the role of helpers are benefitted. In chimpanzees, this is explained by the fact that help is often reciprocated. The practice of aiding other animals survives long term due to kin selection — if a chimpanzee helps a relation survive, some of his genes will survive via that relative. Chimps benefit in a multitude of ways from the behaviors of companions. For example, and individual may share captured meat with a companion, or improve the companion’s hunting strategies through social facilitation. A chimp may vocalize warning calls indicating a threatening predator. One animal may care for another in a time of illness. The group facilitates easier mating, and cooperative child rearing (Goodall, 1986).
The chimpanzees’ social structure itself is of unique form. The society is described as being fusion-fission in nature, meaning that individuals have a relatively high degree of autonomy — they may come and go from the social group as they please. Fusion-fission structure is only possible in animals with a high degree of intelligence, since these are the only creatures that can deal with the resulting uncertainty and tension. Within the greater social group, subgroups of 5 individuals or less change from day to day. In fact, it is rare for a chimp to see all community members in a day or to see one member two days in a row. Males are more gregarious than females, usually encountering all other males several times a week. Females become more social when they are in estrus. Activities performed in these subgroups often include feeding, traveling, and sleeping, though adolescents and adults may just as easily go about these alone (Goodall, 1986).
Both male chimpanzees are arranged in a loose dominance hierarchy. These hierarchies, though initially established through aggression, have an ultimate function of reducing aggression in the social group. They also act as selective devices which give advantages to the most fit high-ranking animals. High-ranking females are most likely to be healthy and frequently make good mothers. High-rankings males have less reason to fear aggression from others, and often receive helpful acts from subordinate animals. The male hierarchy is not linear in form, but rather consists of a series of levels. There is an alpha-male, a few high-ranking males, some middle-ranking males, and a group of low-ranking males. The relative status between two males is determined by fighting, but most “fights” consist of bluffs and ritualized activities. A variety of gestures are recognized as threats, including the dramatic charging display. Chimps perform this display by running upright directly at their opponent, often flailing branches, or throwing loose material. If ritualized displays do not successfully intimidate an opponent, more serious fighting occasionally breaks out. Patterns of attack include hitting, kicking, slamming, biting, scratching, and grappling. It is rare that fights reach a level of intensity at which serious injuries are sustained (Goodall, 1986). Due to the fact that chimps tend to form alliances and coalitions, aggressive behavior can involve groups of individuals. Thus, high-ranking males are not always the strongest animals, but rather the ones who can obtain the most support from their companions (de Waal, 1982).
Sexual behavior in chimpanzees is governed by no definite mating season, but sexual activity is still subject to controls. Females have a 35 day menstrual cycle, including a two week estrus period during which the genitals are distended. Mating is considered polygamous, with both males and females possessing multiple partners. Alpha males, however, attempt to monopolize as many of the females as they can by intimidating subordinates, indicating a moderate form of polygyny. In some instances, pairing preference may occur, but is not common or clear enough to classify chimps as having monogamous tendencies (de Waal, 1982).
As is the case with any animals which live socially, chimpanzees rely heavily on effective communication strategies to facilitate communication among community members. A communicative signal is typically released either with the aim to change the behavior of another individual in the group, or as a general message to which any animal may respond. For example, an infant desiring to suckle will directly convey this to its mother by approaching her with pouted lips. In contrast, a female wishing to mate will display her swollen genitals for all males to see, and any one may respond with interest. Important communication in chimpanzees takes place over the auditory, visual, and tactile channels. Chimps have a wide spectrum of calls which seem to be linked most closely with the emotion of the caller. Calls may be used express feelings like excitement, anger, enjoyment, and fear, serving to alert community member of a food source, express aggression, and warn others of danger (Goodall, 1986).
Visual communication is another widely used mode, which, in chimpanzees, may be carried out by means of facial expressions. The advantages of possessing a face capable of showing expressions are two fold: facial expressions serve as a medium for showing emotion, and, in a complex fission-fusion society like that of chimps, distinguishing facial features may allow the animals to recognize members of their social group. In fact, as evolution has lead primates to living in increasingly complex social groups, the use of facial expressions has also become more prominent. This is marked in the primate lineage by progressively greater complexity in the facial muscles as more recent species evolve. Thus, the modern chimpanzee is capable of a variety of expressions, and relies less on olfactory signals than ancestors likely did (Parr, 2004). Facial expressions likely indicate a particular mood in chimps (de Waal, 1982), and a conscious understanding of the relationship between emotion and facial expressions is not out of the question. A relaxed open-mouth display, for example, indicates a happy mood in the animal. On the other hand, a bared-teeth display indicates an anxious mood. The context in which these appear supports their meaning — the relaxed open-mouth display is commonplace during play, while the bared-teeth display appears as part of submissive gestures. Expressions like these are stereotyped throughout the species for maximum effectiveness; they are easily recognized by recipients, since all chimps form them essentially the same way (Parr, 2004).
Tactile communication is of unusual importance in chimpanzees. In addition to promoting cleanliness and removing skin parasites, the process of social grooming serves to reduce stress among individuals and to regulate relationships. Chimps may groom as part of sexual behavior, adolescent behavior, weaning, and even agnostic behavior as a way of reducing tension between opponents. Since grooming helps to promote positive relationships between chimps, an individual usually grooms one with whom he or she is close to, or could benefit with whom a better relationship would be an advantage. For example, males usually groom higher-ranking males in the hierarchy, so they have powerful allies when challenges arise. The grooming process itself consists of one individual laying or sitting in a relaxed position, and the other parting hair with his or her forefingers, and removing dry skin and debris. The process is enjoyed by both parties, and reciprocation occurs frequently (Goodall, 1986).
An Analysis of Reconciliation
Reconciliation is defined as a friendly reunion between former opponents. Chimpanzees display this behavior as a mechanism to balance the intense aggression which may break out among members of a social group (de Waal, 2000). The process is primarily carried out through the tactile mode of communication, so touching, patting, embracing, grooming, and kissing are frequently utilized. These actions have a calming effect on both parties involved in the altercation. The subordinate animal, in particular, may be in dire need of reassurance to relieve looming anxiety (Goodall, 1986).
Reconciliation appears consist of innate behavior, which are placed into appropriate social context during infancy. During a juvenile’s early development, the mother applies behaviors like grooming and embracing to reduce stress. As the child grows, it comes to associate these inborn gestures with the alleviation of anxious feelings. When conflicts occur later in the animal’s life, the emotions aroused in the dominant individual by the submissive gestures of the subordinate are roughly analogous to a mother’s concern for colicky offspring. In fact, seeking reconciliation seems to come about as a result of anxiety in the subordinate. Thus, it seems that the channeling of the actions involved in reconciliation is derived from their original context as maternal gestures (Goodall, 1986).
The observation of reconciliation in chimpanzees implies a need for change in the traditional view of aggression, when it is applied to social animals. Aggression is typically seen as a way animals can resolve disputes, that has a powerful anti-social effect. A fight settles the matter of which animal may have access to a resource by posing a physical deterrent to the weaker animal. When this deterrent effectively keeps the subordinate away from the dominant animal, lethality may be prevented, but the relationship between the animals is damaged. This is unimportant in species in which individuals have little need for one another, but in social animals, like chimpanzees, both parties become less if a relationship is damaged.. Since survival in chimps depends on mutual assistance, aggression is contained by the need to maintain beneficial relationships. This requires aggression to not be seen as an instinct to cause dispersal, but as a method of competition and negotiation. A useful example of this deals with a mother chimpanzee who needs to wean a child. Both parties benefit from the relationship, since the child needs the mother’s care to survive, and the mother needs the child to pass on her genes. The chimps’ interests conflict in that the infant wants continued nursing for food, while the mother needs her nipples to be available for future offspring. The conflict often reaches aggression, which manifests as temper tantrums in the infant. Reconciliation usually brings about a compromise in which the infant is permitted to “substitute nurse” by suckling on the mother’s lip. Thus, the valuable mother-child relationship is preserved (and shaped, for that matter), but the conflict is resolved. For reconciliation to occur, basic terms must be met. Each animal involved in the feud must recognize the identity of his or her opponent. Furthermore, both animals must appreciate the value of maintaining a relationship with one another. The process will occur more often when the parties involved are of high social or reproductive value to one another (de Waal, 2000).
Clearly, chimpanzees are a species with innumerable behavioral mechanisms, which allow a highly complex society to exist. An understanding of chimps could have implications which would allow us to learn about mankind and our ancestors, however justification of research efforts need not be limited to this argument (Goodall, 1986). Understanding chimpanzees, surly one of the most fascinating and complex animals in the world today, is of interest in and of itself, and with regards to understanding the bigger picture of the natural world.

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:05:31 GMT

"Limestone composed mainly of calcium carbonate is highly effected by carbonic acid."

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 00:46:09 GMT

"The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible -- it was not good for one either -- trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land..."

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 22:41:47 GMT

Survived. Yeah, I've said it so many times already, but it loops and it lingers: I can't believe I kept it together for so long. Contest Closed.

Now, it's really just a matter of summing things up (not that there's really much left to me any more).

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 04:36:43 GMT


	Dear Cupid, This year, I've had my ups and downs in the love department.
Littlewierdkid heard that Felixgirl had dumped me and sent me an inflatable Alpal1488. Interlocutor left a huge flaming vagina on my yard American Beauty style. Littlewierdkid and I got caught hooking up at the movies and now we are banned from the theatre.
So as you can see it's been a hectic year. Can you please make Kodiak_ninja hook up with me this Valentine's day? Sincerely, hemophile

Take this Quiz at QuizUniverse.com
( or, take the 'clean' version at QuizGalaxy.com )

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 17:19:45 GMT

Two weeks of paper knives; mantel pieces and such for promises of private, chilly chambers: I am at least as naieve as you all had hoped, thinking iridescent ice bricks would stand against this stifling hell-fire.

I despise your worldliness.

Yeah, I too saw my reflection in dreamy eyes: dark and gorgeous. It told me all of the horrible little things I never really wanted to know at all. I become...I am all of the things I profess to hate. (I'm sorry!) I can remember...I watched the first time with near indifference as the sea waters claimed the liquified fabric of all of this. So again. And the unprofound ages of practicality to follow will also claim me. The stomach pain is maddening. I am ice to everyone and unsent letters.

Anatomy

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 04:51:39 GMT

This is my cat muscle dissection review and tutorial slide show. If you click the link called "tutorial3" and then click "open," you should be able to view it in your web browser(be patient...it takes a while to load!). I think I incorrectly identified the teres major and one of the neck muscles, but everything else is correct. Please pass this link on to other anatomy students.

http://www.yamato.com/~mikeb/anatomy/

Enjoy.

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 21:45:32 GMT

As promised...

http://www.yamato.com/~mikeb/chastity/

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 04:39:13 GMT

buy me this:

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 07:23:42 GMT

Details ad infinitum are the fabric of the big pictures. Only fools take them empty: vague and unreal. I once wrote an ode to the fabric of things and it says just about all I really have to say...
...except perhaps that this has all gotten very real recently. Even the bare bones --- the details, the instants, the photographs --- had storybook romance when we took away all of the dirges; all of the parades and concerts. It's not even like that any more. It's here and we're living it. It's everything we talked about, isn't it? Isn't it? But I know my truths from my lies now, as I once promised myself I would someday. I am not a fool. I am not mad.

And the only thing that stands to self-honesty is to hold on so tight that I will sooner be shaken apart than dissevered from this. I renounce nothing --- not the future, not practicality, not normalcy. This is my future, practicality is malleable, and anything else would be twisted and unnatural. My choice. My imperative consequence.

I'm sorry everyone gets hurt.

20 hours sick

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 04:19:54 GMT

"Do I dare? And do I dare?"

How to make your own fun

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 21:18:09 GMT

What comes now that we all think we’ve quit drinking? It’s still 8 30 and there’s still nothing to do, but the utterance of one decocts the Great Morel. We take it in our Pepsi cans, and it goes to our heads. Follow me, see what I mean. [“And the Sun with its Brightness”]
Or just ask a few in whispers, “What is the most haunted place in Oakland county?”
In that matter of pursuit, we were lucky, or as “lucky” as an orderly universe does permit any man to be. Shortly, importantly, we got away by means following to that particular end with undesirably low probability. I dare not so soon suggest which we should view as fixed and which (if either) as flexible. [And the Snow with its Whiteness”] Shortly, importantly, we got away.
How fitting and how mocking it seems by daylight that such dreadful things should occupy our high anteroom, so as to disguise it beyond all recognition. Those were all we saw when we looked through that great threshold of planar permitivity: all the wooden staffs and golden-rimmed hawks were dead with the year. [“And the Fire with all the Strength it hath”] Distant streetlight alone revealed a fragment of torn rope hanging fatally still from the stone arch. A radiator clicked on under a high-tension tower bringing daemons to our heals. Our whispers carried for miles, and our minds, much further than that.
And those are the things that little boys dare not suggest during those moments when speaking them could make them be. Or, for that selfsame reason, dare not deny that they impend (assuming that their arms and legs and mouths still work by their minds). Thinking this alone makes us hope we are permitted to take back our thoughts. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way. It always depends on who’s making the rules at night. [“And the Lightening with its rapid Wrath”] We get to at school, unless too many bad things happen. But not when it gets dark out and well into the early hours of the morning when all the last ones who pretend to keep us safe are compelled to relinquish consciousness to the same horrible weight that has become our nemesis (and they do it in peaceful willingness).Not until the Morning Star peaks over the earth-edge in the eastern sky. [“And the Winds with their Swiftness along their path”] That’s how things usually go.
And now, I think I’m starting to feel just the slightest bit teary because the green numbers are telling me all the different kinds of horrible things that I don’t really want to know. We have whispered also in similar moments of silence. The flashing is telling me I’m much too hot. [“And the Sea with its Deepness”]
But now, there are cigarettes and soft lies, because we’ve long since run out of cold pizza and movies to watch. There are high arches and chills; dark caverns to explore and cruel jokes to tell with juvenile bravado that dissolves at the sound of one, serious, sustained scream of agony or mortal terror, and a statement, most matter-of-fact, “It’s time to go.”
So we scuttled like the ants on our skin up the sides of the infinite ravine, [“And the Rocks with their Steepness”] tripping over protruding rocks and tree roots. And the sight of it brought us down paralyzed, as it had before and will again. It brought us to the ground; it brought us to cower in hiding under hot, heavy blankets. It rolled over; rolled past the entrance to the descending path; accelerated down to the end of the block. The police car passed us by. [“And the Earth with its Starkness”] The dark which held all the unknown and unspeakable and all the fabric of the illusions of the Morel...that dark had kept us from other men. Shortly, importantly, we got away.

[But the whispered words once quoted in that tone by an 8, 9, 10 year old boy (who I had left for dead in an atrophied corner of my mind), came back to me last night. “Between myself and the Power of Darkness”]

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:39:53 GMT

"...and a fucking BBQ friday night? You can't even give that up when your work isn't done?!"
-Michael Doyle Sr.

maybe the most fun i've ever had in my life...

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 18:54:07 GMT

[As I re-read this, it seems to include obvious and recurring sexual connotations. I wanted to clarify that though these may have arisen as a byproduct of some of the language chosen, they were not my intent to communicate. This leads me to wonder, however, if I make a subliminal connection between the evening's events and my preconception of the sexual act. My understanding of human sexuality is far too poor and vague for me to have set up such a metaphor consciously.]

I win.

I have taken all the things they said I couldn't have, and dismissed the nagging, plaguing, eye-corner spectres. Toxic light, smoke, loud noise: those three days of painful realization.

Realization that wasn't, because maybe you're just a little bit correct, and, cryptically as ever, I've been saying something very similar recently. That's what most of the answers are going to be, or the other way around; it's all the same. But I'm right also, in all that it took to get here; in everything that has brought me here. But now isn't that just half the fun?

And never, never will we do it again, all together in the same place. And finally, thankfully, it doesn't even matter that its over...

And there we all were, and here we, the passionate, go again...

And, as ever, I fell to the ground with her .

"Don't dream it...be it..."

(What you have just read has been ::gasp:: an untainted happy entry)

Σ

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 05:53:07 GMT

When I look through tragic things like papers, photographs, and the other corpses we retain like twisted, masochistic, little pack rats, I tend to conclude that I must have grown up on a Delta 757: Atlanta to Detroit. In a back row bathroom-stink seat, I learned about a thing that I could only place as life’s persistent sorrow, only joy, and sole consistency. I was 10 and I cried a lot to my mommy. Some time later (and like the little moron I was), I learned to call this “transience” which was notably more vague. Not to embellish anything to the magnitude of holiness, but today was another day…

and, in all probability, tomorrow will be also. Tonight I write a dirge with four, hasty, angular strokes --- the first, careless, experimental lines made by a preschooler defiling a stark-white tabletop, red crayon in fist (or those of other loosely equivalent acts of creation and deprecation). What I mean is, I draw sigma for the children of the exhausted mantras: this is an ode to the fabric of things when the ceremonies conclude and all of the great symbols decompose on the kitchen counters. Writing this will necessarily be a most paradoxical undertaking, but I have become well accustomed to duality.
Here are the things that don’t belong to me:
7 Window Ledges
139 Subway Sandwiches
5 Wasp Stings
3 Ruined Shirts
944 Cans of Diet Coke with Lemon
56 Rented Movies
40 Tea Candles
A Few Million Heart Beats
1 Trashed Oven
19 Street Lamps
3 Swimming Pools
194 Burned Logs
308 Plates of Nip N Tuck
40 Tough Fights
1.5 oz Nutmeg
4 People Who Just Clicked
8 Football Games
3 Garden Hoses
All the inverted spectre-sights of summer nights and other things that never were as well
and peace of mind that’s known to men who take of the Great Morel!

What’s left for me to tell you about what might have been yesterday? A great many things tend to come full circle if one is sufficiently patient. I know. I have screamed and cried and carried on like a toddler, and heard the wheel groan on its rotary axis as if it might actually respond sympathetically. I’ve seen times long forgotten by the sieve return in the strangest of places to run together with others as they never did before…like poetic compilation. I wish I had another 6 years to watch this happen over and over and over again. I don’t. But still, I opened the same black gate with a shivering arm. I walked to my car and I saw others turn on their headlights, start their motors, and pull away. I used to roll my pants and unbutton my shirt when I jumped off the diving board. A girl said I looked better, then, with short hair, but I think the cold always had the same bite (it stung like the passions of life!). I always emerged dripping to sit in the green and gold where the crickets and cicadas sang: to find an empty chair and someone’s arms while the crickets and cicadas sang. I’d look upon the same smiles on the same faces and hear conversations so much like those of years past that I really think what we actually do is go out and play some games and then come back to the gazebo by the pool to join back in on the conversation that started an eon ago. I do not think it will last an eon longer; one night I will open and close the gate for good. I may wear a blue button-down shirt that clings to my body with pungent water. I may mount a bicycle and whisk home through the thick night, painted yellow-orange. Or I may walk and remember walks when I was much colder and much drier. But it is most likely that it will not happen that way.
Sometimes we need to write a function as an infinite sum:
6 Perfect Semesters
A million Dollars in Gas
170 Park Concerts
∞ Instantaneous Frames
26 Pictures on My Wall
1,783 Cups of Coffee
6 “Projects”
63 Faded Scars
1 Tin of Butter Cookies
40 Xantac Pills
9 Midnight Movies
3 People Loved
1 Empty Fortune Cookie
4 Alcohol Binges
2,633 Problems Solved
3 Serious Anxiety Attacks
4 Pocket Knives
2 Christmas Trees
We call it “transcendental.” Allegedly, it’s supposed to converge onto reality, when we consider a sum of terms to no end. “You were worried about the ends of things…”
“Yes, and I am. I really do love [her].”
“You know I’ve always worried…”
“I know. You were there before all of us in a lot of ways. And you just admitted you were scared.”
There’s nothing left for me to tell you about anything that might have been yesterday. I’m saying “you” freely now because I know that there must be a “you” or otherwise I would not be doing this. It doesn’t even hurt me to remind myself of that anymore, though once it was the most profound of all insults. You know you could do anything in the world to me and I couldn’t stay mad at you. So not the point of this paragraph. What I meant to say was that when it comes down to it, what has this been but more of the same life? All the sort of music that seems made up of night smells, and the occlusions of the ages that flash red-brown before half-mast eyes…that’s all they are. That’s what all of the memories and all of the sobbing ceremonies have been made of; why every moment that I expected to be just a little bit more than a moment --- the way I liked to remember things --- seemed to come up short.
“As much as you say there aren’t instants, you can’t think that all we perceive is the past. There is a present, you know, in fact. That’s all there is.”
“I’ll believe you when I can see you in two places at once.”
“Meh. They can make photons do that now.”
“Photons don’t count; they travel at the speed of light so it is imperative that they have zero mass. It would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate…”
My train of thought trailed off. Somehow it didn’t really matter right then, for the same reason that so many different things that seemed to contradict each other could coexist and possess simultaneous and self-same truth. People think they have reasons to disagree when all they really do is say the same thing with opposite words. Even wars are started over the most ridiculous and meaningless things.
Like:
2 Rusty Bicycles
7 dL Blood
9 Broken Water Guns
39 Minor Anxiety Attacks
1,000 Missed Opportunities
0 Regrets
311 Half-hearted punches
427 Sedative Tablets
4 Full Notebooks
A million Tears
6 Infected Piercings
2 Basements
308 Exams
1 Demon
200 Sunsets
644 Hot Dogs
79 Long Walks
terminating in drowsy, flickering half-light by which we die for a while in each other’s arms.
“No mulberries yet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
How careless time is to make a bright afternoon in July and a dark, lonely house the same color! But I have shared a hazy, lingering melancholy far sweeter and more touching than happiness either way: the kind that gets in the eyes and shrouds the world like an opiate mask. I have ridden swings as high as any child in familiar playgrounds and taken hands out in the sunshine. I have seen the golden pulse light the shady houses through dusty windows and gaping front doors, and dance on the flooded yard that holds us, ankle deep. And so, have I seen it light the blood-warm summer rain while we spin around each other so blissfully alone while the mushroom cloud rises in the south. I learned how tightly I’d have to hold on so that you wouldn’t be torn away from me to fall lifeless in the grass, and I learned that I couldn’t amid the usual fit of laughter and tears that make us so much closer every time. I don’t even get tired of trying to believe in it --- I am sufficiently determined to keep us safe from the tides of the land should all else fall apart around us. That, we are used to anyway, over bitter hot tea, rain-soaked pajama pants, and unwashed faces that endlessly exchange broken gazes.
Oh, hello Michael! And aren’t you looking post-apocalyptic this evening?
We used to say “no more.” Now we sob over inevitabilities, mostly.
“I think that’s why we went there to collect ourselves. I think part of me thought that if I went back again it would be June, and you would be next to me. There would be children playing and mulberries to eat. There weren’t. There were only trucks hauling things into the Norup fields, and they had cut down the mulberry tree. The world was in my face again when I got home. Everything was real and sharp...like how I see it when I wear corrective lenses. I sat back down for an internet chat. And then the lights flickered...”
The world changed again with the set of the sun, and I wished I would never have to look at it in any other way again. Music, laughter, myriad stars, and the smoke of bonfires filled the thick, untainted night like they always do at the place I go in my dreams. I laid awake for a long time with tears in my eyes over the thought of doing any of this without you.
Of Places and Things Are Treacherous Companions Made:
44 Passing Trains
3 Coffee Shops
37 Essays
1 Living human body
3 Identities
1 Royal Oak City
20 Manila Folders
3 Pairs of Sunglasses
2 Computer Keyboards
26 Sticks of Incense
2 Valve Keys
11 Lawns Cut
31 Novels
18 Empty Bottles
3 Gasoline Engines
2 Shopping Carts
31 Dead Animals
2 Failures
I think. But walk with me anyway in the cool ravine where time ends.
And listen to the winds. (And rainfall.)
I went looking for ghosts the first time, but that’s usually how things go. It stands to reason that I found shadows and whistling wind; torrential rain and mud pits, but true phantoms have appeared only in other things: coffee cups, and such. Interchangeable cheap hotels. As I write, the pile of books at the foot of my bed has this quality and reminds me that I carried it up along with a styrofoam cup. I felt as though we were drawn to the room like very old friends keeping an ancient pact to meet again at a specific time and specific place. Whether the pact had ever been stated explicitly or whether it had simply grown out of everyone’s heart and then come true, none could really remember. But that’s how perfectly in place I felt…as though our commonality embedded in the fabric of that room had drawn us there on long tangled tendrils…
(This is an ode to all Quintessential Cheshire Cats and anyone else who has walked with me through walls of solid cinder block (or on the surface of a green-tinted lakes dotted with leafy islands). And, this is an apology to all holders of macrocosmic puzzle pieces that mine was missing for those hours between 11 and 1 at night in the dead of the Michigan winter. I felt a ghost-kiss, and I walked down to the lobby in my swimsuit past the free coffee machine. The lady working at the desk simply told me that the hotel did not have a swimming pool. Which was imperative…) The world is beautiful and fascinating, so we’ll learn, love, and have fun. Otherwise, perhaps, some things must be done differently. I have celebrated for seventeen and a half years; everyone needs some kind of an excuse…
And after so long, it’s a small miracle I remembered to park my bike under the pine tree.
People who don’t like to cry should throw away things that have burned up or burned out.
99 Photographs
1 Wallet
19 CDs
1 Stomach Ulcer
A million heart beats
1 Black Out
27 lb Dust in My Socks
704 Bugs
5 bags Salty Licorice
2 Cellular Phones
5 Science Competitions
2 Sunrises
I cry. And I love the way you make me feel like my world is going to end.
Really, I only left my bike there because my tube blew out. I had to go around on foot and look for the other lonely ones with bicycles and sad and searching eyes. My mom pointed out how few of the “old parents” still bothered to come to the concerts --- the old men and women who were the mothers and fathers of the children my age. She asked me what it’s like to grow up in a place (she never had that opportunity). I told her that it hurts. It’s like seeing the same people and the same places in a lot of different ways, as through a lot of different kinds of glass varying in index of refraction. When you look upon someone or something, you don’t just see it as it is in the present. You see it as it is now and every other way it ever has been. No matter which version you choose to look at, the thing is obscured…blurred by too many images and ideas and emotions radiating from it all at once.
And what when they play the Halcyon for us?
For when I look at them, we’re there sometimes instead:
Posed as newlywed
[in gowns;
this is a sacred moment, I know].
And most of those things must have ended right around the time I threw away the valve key I used to open the spigot below the drinking fountain: when I knew I couldn’t need it any more. And ah! This has been no great funeral (though we’re so old and weathered, I don’t doubt we’re on the edge of death)! But it was only the same park where I played with water guns when I was ten. The same loves and the same quarrels. The same sounds and scents on the air. The same permeating truth and eternal lie that give us every moment to belong to us for no time at all (as we may expect from the duality of our benefactor). I came looking for a casket and an elegy. But this has been the moment of life and death and nothing at all because I didn’t really realize anything I didn’t know and none of this has meant anything but LIVING BREATHING PASSION!
I slipped out through the garage into an autumnal evening: dry leaves rustled under bare feet and smoke and fiddle music and cries of gaiety hung on the heavy air. These, I would have loved more had I not been running --- compelled forward through gelatin air by an anxiety so profound that any attempt to rationalize it as a form of mortal terror must have been one made in self-comfort. White pin pricks pulsed above in the hot brown sky, as the tessellated waxing moon and the musculature of my frantic body. Sticks went into my soles and snapped painfully.
You sat in lawn chairs and we barely touched, but with dark, sympathetic eyes. I used to think your broken gaze icy, but tonight only you knew me. Would your arms be any warmer? [I’m too warm and my tie’s too tight.] And all I can think about is {} who probably loves some faceless boy named {}. [This is a sacred moment, I know.]
I ran past a great stone church; a grave yard; cheap motels; unique restaurants. My skin was fair then, and my hair was short and well-kept. My eyes retained their green with more fiery youth than fierce exhaustion. They dared deviate from the seemingly preset course of their bearer to identify his pursuers:

17 ½ Years of Youth

It was another boy that pursued: a tall and confident-looking boy with box-framed glasses. He jingled handcuffs. A girl was at his side: a beautiful, rainbow-eyed girl with box-framed glasses. She called my name and I hid from them in a café that doesn’t exist. Or I ran into the Children’s City to take refuge in the theatre that no one visits, from all but the short, black-haired youth who rode the escalator with shorts and no shoes. He told me that I, too, could take off my shoes…they’d probably still let me in. We’d have stayed there and spoken for hours before bicycling away in opposite directions, except I’m actually a few miles north of there now, and a lot of people in the back seat of my little, black car are shouting, “MIIIIKE! TUUUURRRRRN!!!” Where was I then? Right…the first time, we went looking for ghosts…
My tires screeched as I made that turn but, at last, gripped the dirt road and set us in forward motion. At length, we passed over a modest-looking cement bridge. We parked the car a couple blocks away and got out to walk back.
We must have discussed this all more than I care to delineate right now, and I must have worried a lot more than retelling this makes me worry. But mostly, I remember us finding a dirt path which led away from the road and up a steep incline for a few yards. This, we scaled in a few strides, and looked over the edge of a shallow ravine to discover that the seemingly-mundane cement bridge we had traversed minutes before was actually a breathtaking structure of high, stone arches. Before long, we were looking up at it from below so as to experience the full impact of its presence. The airflow and ambient temperature; the sound the wind made and the way our voices echoed gave it an otherworldly quality, as though the arches represented an area of permittivity in a great veil that divides realities. So the railroad tracks on which we had begun to walk and the gold of the late-summer setting sun passed such a threshold. “See that? That’s where we need to go.” I had pointed to the sacred singularity where the tracks met the horizon --- that distant and hypothesized destination where their parallelism fell to pieces. So that’s where we walked together on tracks self-same to the end of perception and the divergence of space-time itself, through a shallow ravine where a hawk screamed overhead. We told each other that we were all very much unafraid.

morning found us calmly unaware

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:08:38 GMT

Mon, 23 May 2005 22:54:33 GMT

I first said I was an atheist when I was 7. I can put together a puzzle ring in 15 seconds. I was terrible at math until 5th grade. I learned to speak from my father. I have never kissed a girl. I carried a dead rat home once in elementary school; I carried a dead squirrel home last year.I beat “Myst” when I was 8. I hurt myself for the first time when I was 6; I did it habitually when I was 14; I stopped when I was 17. I used to be afraid of the tornado siren, but never tornados. I am called “Beezle” by my family. I used to spell talk “taulk.” I own Pokemon promo cards #1-42. I ate an ounce of nutmeg once to induce hallucinations. I was humiliated at 4th grade science summer camp because I bit off more than I could chew and gave a really bad oral presentation. I like to play on the swings very late at night. I never watch television programs (excluding movies). I used to look at Hentai. I didn’t know my right from my left until fourth grade: the same year I learned to tie my shoes. I wonder if I have brain damage every morning, usually over breakfast. I shower twice a day sometimes. I kind of like to do derivatives the long way. I dismantled a friend’s Sega Genesis under false pretenses of planning to fix it. I drank insecticide once. I am afraid of my own consciousness. I can build a phone bug. I used to be sexist. I once anesthetized part of my own anal canal. I counterfeited Pokemon cards and traded them to first graders for real ones. I still feel guilty for the time I almost built Dane an induction transformer device after he was mean to Jackie. I almost never read on my own. I once asked Santa to make me immortal. I look at myself in the mirror too much. I do not feel guilty for the counterfeited Pokemon cards. I grew up with Winnie the Pooh, but never Sesame Street. I once dumped water on a lamp and grabbed it just to see what would happen (guess). I am ashamed to even think about sex. I don’t know how to use most people’s microwaves. I am an attention whore. I pray, sometimes, even though I’m an atheist. I do not help my parents whenever I can possibly get away with it. I used to enjoy demolishing CDs in the microwave oven. I know how to program a TI-83 graphing calculator. I’ve never thought myself to love. I hate seeing people content with their lives. I know how to tie a noose. I like to eat Jimsonweed. I think in radians instead of degrees. I would rather sit with you in silence than go see a movie. I drink five cups of coffee every day. I don’t make small talk. I never win games of chance. I embarrass myself almost every time I open my mouth. When I grow up, I would like to be God.

how to go back again

Sun, 15 May 2005 23:40:41 GMT

(On a tangent note, I did not fail to remember that today is May 15th, and, in remembrance, wore drawstring pant on my head this morning. I do not like citrus fruits and, to date, cannot bring myself to consume one.)

If I had taken today's (5/15/02) lessons more seriously, it is likely that a great many things would not have turned out as they did. I would have more hours and fewer scars. More people would trust me. My parents would hate fewer of my friends. But hours are expended anyway, and collagen is replaced and recycled. People forgive and forget. Usually. These are all likely matters. Likely. As time approaches infinity, predictability diminishes to zero. Multifactorialism, the butterfly effect, etc. I'll reiterate an irony: I used to hate the thought of statistics. But who doesn't love certainty? Yet I do believe this complexity is beautiful, also. So I'd better start using words like "likely."

Last night, I didn't have anything to do. No one wanted to see me and I didn't want to see anyone. There was nothing to do except study or watch movies. But being stuck inside on Saturday night gets me way too depressed. Especially when it's only eight o'clock and it's still light out. I thought about the things I had to accomplish and I thought about the fight this morning and I thought about how I had failed to make anything of my afternoon. I found one of my old straight razors in my sister's room; I believe I will keep a close eye on her this week. It was the last straw, though. I left alone.

I was in one of those situations where I couldn't decide if was lonely as hell or desperate to get away from everyone and everything. I drove through Royal Oak, only to decide that I'd rather spend some time at Xhedos. I began to drink coffee (which is instantly painful now...my stomach's gotten that bad lately), and I didn't care that the cup wasn't bottomless. I didn't care that the girl made me pay a cover. I got lost in acoustic music, and lyrics that didn't really seem to paint a big picture. So I took the songs line by line when the words were intelligible. My mind felt smeared across time, and an intense feeling of peace, at length, overtook me.

I stayed an hour, exactly. The third band had heavy percussion, and the sound was invading my biorhythms: my heartrate was increasing and becoming irregular as it so often does. I was ready to leave, but my time and money were well spent (if that is possible).

I didn't know where to go next. I was unusually tired for an evening only half-spent, but I decided to give Royal Oak a second chance. I took just long enough to walk to the car; to figure out the massive junction at Main, Detroit Zoo, I-696, and North Woodward; to find a space off of an alley next to a park you're familiar with. Just long enough to walk Main twice before returning to look over the fence into the park where you spent a very warm summer night. But what you actually hope will happen is you'll make out a blurry, familiar face in the half-light, exchange words, and walk ten paces in opposite directions. Or, thenafter, simultaneously turn around to face one another again and walk to Caribou to drink more coffee and talk of more silly familiar things.

Hoping. And I used to hate statistics.

Does sentience give value?

Fri, 13 May 2005 03:38:13 GMT

I came home today, and whatever solvents had been used in the kitchen gave it a sterile hospital smell. It made me shiver.

The Year of the Fool________________May 31, 2004
********************************************************
When all of this started (when all of this came about me; consumed me), I'd have answered "no, of course not" This year has concerned me with macrocosms. My interest has been of the nature of piecing together a bigger picture using the significance of individuals --- "factors," they could be called. Naturally, when an organism is thought of as a factor, sentience is only of importance in regards to two things (as are alll physiological and behavioral traits):
1) Improvement or deprecation of the species' fittness
2) The effect 1 has on macrocosmic balance
Therefore, sentience does not give value.

My answer to the initial question is revised when I take into account emotional concepts, wherein the learning of the year comes into place. It would have been ridiculous for me to have believed that I could find peace emersed in Mercury. I know that in order to be content I will have to Be for Being's sake; knowing myself I see this as an impossibility. But for a time I did believe that if I accepted eternal restlessness, the mercurial winds would have answers to the problems that came up. It was the emotional realm that I discredited --- by the laws I hold so close to myself, balance must be attained; antithesis is necessary. I discovered what this meant when I saved the lives of a dozen lab rats. What made the rats more valuable than the 10 ants I stepped on this morning? The Rational tells me "nothing"...yet they were. The animals were sentient. If we let the animals be factors, why are they worth saving? They were bred in captivity --- any natural systesm involved were already torn and raped by mankind. There are thousands and thousands like it suffering unspeakably in labs, or meeting much quicker demise in the cages of snakes. If the rats are considered factors, this vastness deprecates their value and makes the thought of saving or grieving them far too futile. The only way it makes sense is in response to compassion felt for the individual animal. The foundation of this is sentience because it allows of an anthropomorphic relationship. It allows for some primative reciprocation of feeling. Then even analyzed in the most technical terms, sentience gives value.
*********************************************************
Do I still know the boy who wrote those things? He liked sine curves, mercury, quick answers, big pictures, jumping the gun, doing derivatives the long way, LeChatilier's priciple, tapping on glass, and the smell of formalin. He hated anything statistical or quantanized. It's only a story now --- distant and irrelevant. After a while, we're all numb to death. There exists only a schism among men in its wake...that's what the futility leaves. It leaves men and beasts: those who continue to care and the true emtional dead. So where am I now? My, I throw that question around a lot.

Gus is dead. When do you detatch yourself from lab animals? Immediately and never. And that was why he was so cool to know. But all I could think about this week was how alone he must feel now. I treated him for Mycoplasma. Then high dose steroids. Then baby food on a plastic spoon. Then mom gave him sub-Q fluids. Then inevitable disorder. I listened to him heave and sputter for a week and a half. And I learned more about myself than I ever did about Pavlov or Tinbergen (as I had once suggested to a friend). And it's right what they say, "Never knowing's like knowing too much."
Or, better, knowing too much is like never knowing. And from both ends I know absolutely nothing.
And I want to do it all alone. And I want it done right! But what else is new? There's nothing new you can tell me, so you might as well not be my nausea. And now I've done it again.

Mr. Fadoir came up to me today and asked me if I had taken part in Novitsky. I told him "no." He asked if I had last year? "no" Will I next year? "probably not." "But I thought you were interested in bio?" he asked. "Yeah...I am. Maybe I will." But I'll admit my interest is waning a little bit here to all of you. Stunted is a better word. Stunted by lots of precision; determinism; calculus. Stunted by ever-increasing emotional disconnection. And now, tonight, I just feel even more far away, and more depressed. Loss does that. It's self-centered to feel badly about death; we should take joy in the final peace of another creature. We so badly want to keep each other around. Or maybe it's jealousy. I've disected that. It still feels so wrong, and everyone just makes it worse. But it shouldn't. This dichotomy is killing me. I'm running out of things I haven't disected. And fucked up.

I'm so sleepy now, and there's nothing to look at that doesn't cause me to recall some form of melancholy. It goes even deeper when you're exhausted because you can't think it through all the way, so it just sits there until your eyes tear up and your skin prickles.

-Michael Doyle

Stupid Grins and Time

Sun, 08 May 2005 05:19:26 GMT

Another week is done, so we're all one week closer to the end of the school year. But we have to be careful of counting down. But we know that.

On Tuesday, May 3rd, I took the AP Calculus BC exam. I think I got about a 4. I'm already vaguely aware of some of the fundamentally retarded mistakes I made. I got lazy after that. I haven't accomplished anything of substance since Tuesday, which makes Tuesday seem rather far away. We didn't celebrate 555 day, but then, it really couldn't have come at a worse time. But I am 555. I think. We could have at least derived Phi or something. Pythagoras was among the first to realize that the ratio of alternating sides of superinscribed pentagons and pentacles has importance in many odd places (sunflowers, pineapples, nautilus shells). Not that it's in the same vein as anything else of much relevance right now. See also: Pi day.
Φ = (1+√5)/2
I had my own "Phi" day on which I attempted the construction of Pythagoras' figure using stumps and logs. I built four of five sides and then I got too lazy to continue. I don't like four very much...it's kind of an unpleasant number. This is what I've been doing instead of homework. And to think, a year ago I'd have actually made myself finish, when it probably matters even less than anything else that has happened this fucking week!

On the bright side, I've warmed up to statistics and probability. And photographs. And almost even numbers (almost). And I keep wondering if there's a time quantum, but that's not the kind of thing you just ask someone. Who would you ask, "Who killed the goddamn Cat?!" On the bright side, if I tried to walk directly at this wall several trillion times, I'd eventually just go through it. Or on water.

My rat is still alive. I hope it's ok that I tell you that even though I do not look at him right now. Gus became very sick monday night...my mother and I thought he was going to die. I couldn't sleep. So it goes. I think the Doxy has been helping. I hope the Doxy has been helping. This is so much different when it hits so close to home. If last year I learned how much I want to know, then this I've learned how much I don't know, and, to a vastly lesser degree, how much I do know. Then perhaps another of my aspirations has been fulfilled: I nearly know what it means to lie to myself and I nearly know how to avoid it. Nearly.
Five weeks to point the camera at the television. And I have piles of old photographs.
"Do I dare/Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time/For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse./For I have known them all already, known them all..." -Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Sometimes I really think I have. But I can't help but wonder: who is she? And then it's time to do it all over again. And then it's time to superimpose more lies and more meaningless perversion onto innocent people. And now I'm really just too tired to continue to ramble in here. I started writing without anything of importance to say, and here I finish without anything of importance to say. I would appreciate it if you stopped reading and abstained from mentally revisiting this entry.

-Michael Doyle

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 02:24:31 GMT

i could do anything to myself right now and i wouldnt feel it

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:10:43 GMT

have you ever found it fascinating how quickly everyone can turn against you?