Friday, April 28, 2006

why asparagus makes your pee stink
"You may have heard the tall tale that "asparagus urine" is linked to higher intelligence. In fact, it's the result of a simple chemical reaction. Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan. (It's also found in rotten eggs, onions, garlic, and in the secretions of skunks.) When your digestive tract breaks down this substance, by-products are released that cause the funny scent. The process is so quick that your urine can develop the distinctive smell within 15 to 30 minutes of eating asparagus."

Read more here:
http://1800askdan.tripod.com/Asparagus.htm

Ulam cooked @ 12:54 AM

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Lana you pathetic little girl
Lana kissing Lex is just unnecessary. Cheap plotting ploy. BOO.

Ulam cooked @ 12:45 AM

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Thursday, April 20, 2006

Muted
When the keyboard rested
Silent and incompatible,
Forgotten like a long lost one night stand
That meant more than the fuck
But just couldn’t last through
Life’s other fucking things,
That is when my spirit
Slowly
Began
To…

Shhh.

The synaptic outbursts that
Fueled the movement
Now powerless in fatigue, neglect
And denial like the innocent parents
Of gangstas with straight A’s.

Shhh.

Don’t mention the strife.
Acknowledgement means reality
And fantasy just makes that much
More sense to me
At the moment.
What the dream says is the
Pen drips and slick quips
that once protected have
been outgrown like evolution gone wrong.

The oppression of my soul
Began when the chronicling of the world
by our passionately cynical eyes
through strings of words and stanzas
ended.
The death of my nature eulogized
With the whiteness of pages.

When the outdoor voice spoke
Of revolution it sang of life, so
When silenced came…

Shhh.

Ulam cooked @ 5:10 PM

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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

i suck
it's been a long time since we've played softball - and boy I was really really looking forward to today's game.

then it came.

i was jittery - a mixture of nervousness, over-caffeination, and fatigue led me to completely missing the strike zone most of the night.

it was terrible.

i rarely get a chance to have the team on my shoulders and i blew it.

NOW, why this bothers me so much.

I've spent a bunch of time tonight moping about my terrible showing - though ironically I got my first strikeout. Obviously, one of the reasons was my aforementioned letting down the team. I am one of the, hmm, worst all-around players on the team. I don't hit as well as most, I don't field as well as most, and was relegated to catcher duties a few years ago - that position obvioulsy reserved for the slow-a-foot, easily inebriated, or generally sucky. That's fine. It's all about the team and I have fun at the position. But, when I get a chance to hold down the fort for the team, I don't want to fuck up - but that's exactly what I did tonight.

Now, another reason has been my lack of ability to control my atheltic endeavors lately - particularly in basketball. I've playedd off and on since February about 6 times. In none of those days, at least 3 games each day, I have not hit an outside jumper nor most of my shots. My shooting percentage is probably still between 13-13.3%. What is my regular? Not much better but definitely not that bad.

And so, I've been frustrated. and i think in life i've been frustrated and maybe that's why i'm lost in work a lot. actually, there's avoidance also - and obviously a big, heaping pile of actualy sincere interest and joy in my job. but my avoidance is about loose ends, disconnect, same shit that I was facing 5 years ago in my supergaling page - but I feel like I was so much more healthy about them before even if physically i wasn't as healthy. Ironic.

I'm frustrated that I'm so disconnected with my parents and my sister.

I'm frustrated that I haven't had a real relationship since Cyndi in 1997 - and that was an intense, real love - but it was, like slick rick said, a teenage love. AND NOW, my proxy girlfriend is probably Cyndi even though I rarely even see her or talk to her about real shit. It's still weird being good friends with your one and only real ex-love. Our friendship now is definitely healthier than anything we ever had as *kids*, but it's still weird at times. A good weird. I'm particularly frustrated with this singlehood thing (though singlehood is great) because I'm not some knuckleheaded loser with no personality. I may not be hot. I may not be exquisite. but i do feel like i have, and always have had, substance.

I'm frustrated that I am single by my own volition - my own quirks - my own hangups - my own bullshit. In supergaling, I wrote that I wanted to be appreciated but specifically for the idiosyncracies i wanted appreciated. I still feel the same. I also feel like i've grown ever distrustful of others - and that is a quandry because I really don't want to holler at someone I know or somewhat have known in the past or present. BUT, I can't trust a stranger girl. Again, I'm relationship, uhh, disordered.

I'm frustrated that i've lost touch with many of my good friends and again that's partly my own fault.

All of those things - as well as softball, basketball, football, and whatever else I indulge in - are controllable.

I'm also frustrated that I have many great ideas for stories and looking back at the depth of my self and environmental analysis it's obvious I can handle this writing craft to some degree of competence. Why do I let it waste?

I'm frustrated - and when I find myself in situations that I can but don't control it sucks.

Sports and competition may be more free agents - but frustrating nonetheless.

And I really don't think I'm very control-needy.

Ulam cooked @ 12:37 AM

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the trouble with emoting
I was reading my old webpage, Super Galing, this afternoon instead of being more productive and was amazed and saddened. The idea of the webpage was actually pretty ingenious especially in its simplicity. It was a quilt of sorts as noted by my links bar. Quilts, as in American history were made of pieces - each individualized, each telling their own story. The webpage I created used my miniscule knowledge of html tables and turned it into the structure, the backbone, and the essence of the page. As I started to disconnect from the page - I ended it. The quilt was completed in a sense. At least, it was emotionally organic in its creation and its end.

It grew to be quite long. Yes, the webpage. Basically, it spanned April 2001 - January 2002. At times, I updated it daily. Because the sizes of each quilt aka table was arbitrary, I could post long meandering messages to very short poignant and/or silly quips. What was great though, was that I tried to add a complete row everytime. And each time, though some issues were repeated or ongoing, the messages were raw, sincere, AND unique. I may have crooned over a girl over and over again, but each time was a different idea or emotion or example or frontier.

Really, it was a beautiful time. April 2001 through January 2002 covered everything from starting my first real job, to transitioning out of being a college student, to becoming a real adult, to dealing with my 3rd greatest heartache, and to dealing with September 11.

I could write a book about this one simple html file full of experiences, introspect, and sincerity. This was the time of new tattoos. This was the time of both inspiration and disenchantment. This was truly a great moment of searching - and I think that is why I wrote and I was honest about my vulnerability. Why protect a symbol - all my body and life were at the time were symbols - why protect a symbol when it meant nothing? I was just evolving within that search. A search, that is quite obviously, undone.

I wrote some simplified proverbs.

I mixed poetry with prose. That truly was the grand opening of the prose store - the store that has evolved into prosemonkey.com because sometime since I've broken up with poetry, cheated on her in fact, to flirt with prose without ever committing.

It was complete self-indulgence - but it was important and shameless. It was cockiness with humble intentions. Super Galing - or super good - was in fact just that.

And now I have trouble emoting. I share thoughts - but inconsistently. I feel at times that my feelings are worthless. Does a post 9/11 world devalue my honest insecurities?

Maybe it's also because this whole archiving of blog posts hasn't worked out in the way I've set up my account. Therefore there really isn't any sort of running room of mirrors - I can't reflect except for one moment - and as we know, our experiences, like ourselves, are not islands. Maui is. Where the Dharma Initiative and the Others are - that's an island. Ironically, all the LOST stories show us that none of us are islands.

Although I love the convenience of blogging, I miss quilting.

Maybe I should do that again. Maybe I should get off my ass and committ...

... to this prose thing.

Ulam cooked @ 12:27 AM

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Friday, April 14, 2006

2 things
1) I'm watching Wedding Crashers... and I love this line: "the real enemy here is the institution of marriage. It's not realistic, it's crazy!"

Marriage. Stupid.

Btw, I just found out that Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend have agreed not to get wed until Gay Marriage is legal in the US - or something like that. Good for them! They won't have to waste money on that stupid party.

Oh and a 2nd btw: Rachel McAdams - yum.

2) On a more serious end - I was told, in passing and somewhat jokingly, yet sincerely, to "go to church" today by one of my best friends knowing that I don't go to church at all. I'll acknowledge that it was done in best intentions - but it's been bothering me since (well - the part of the day that the A's weren't again underplaying to their talent and my two afternoon naps).

At our friends' wedding in October, I asked her what I should do for "communion" because I was part of the wedding, like I was at another wedding two years ago - and I didn't go up - because I no longer do that. But I felt weird since Filipino families are quite psudeo-devout. So I felt weird because I don't know what my friends' families would feel about me - one the people in the wedding - not taking part in the dogmatic rituals. Then I rationalized, it's obviously common that friends ask friends to be in their wedding knowing full well that they're not of the celebrated religion of that ceremony. But then, I was still there. So I asked my friend if I should go up to get that substitution cross armed prayer. She said, "Everyone could use a prayer." And, I was thinking - okay, cool.

Then I thought about it afterwards, and I was a bit unnerved by it. Mainly, I don't like doing shit for the sake of having to. AND, I also don't think specifically targeted spritual-religious prayers aren't needed by everyone. Good wishes, good hopes, good spirits, an overpowering connection to something unknown is always WELCOME and needed, but I couldn't say the same for say a "catholic" prayer or a "muslim" prayer. I can't necessarily see how a non-Christian is going to benefit from a prayer done under Jesus' name. Get me? It's great to hope and wish for someone - but why pray to someone or something for someone who doesn't believe in that person or thing? I mean, I get why. You pray for those you love. I get it. But it doesn't necessarily vibe in the sense that particular scenario presented.

Anyway - I've made a decision that I'm not "Catholic" anymore and with that I don't go to church or do the other rituals that Catholics do, like pray - or, well that's all i did as a "Catholic" anyway. But that was my decision. It wasn't laziness to go to church. I just made that decision.

Telling me to go to church - because it's Good Friday, btw, folks - or telling me not to eat meat today or telling me not to go out today... Thanks, I appreciate it, but no thanks.

How would you feel if I told you to not go to church? Or if I told you to eat meat today or to go out?
Seriously - it's the same thing.

Respect my space and my decisions. And check your imposing biases at the holy water.

[i love her - she really is one of my best friends - and i appreciate the intended wellness]

[[but don't]]

Ulam cooked @ 11:26 PM

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Monday, April 03, 2006

Bobby Brady's Boner Stabone
Hmm. When Bobby Brady got his first kiss and saw the fireworks, did he have a Boner Stabone?

Why did I not put two and two.. nevermind. Bad thought.

Ulam cooked @ 6:13 PM

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