P Stewart's blog

Simply: I have returned

This idea came to me about a week ago. Not novel, nor requiring any great intelligence for discovery -- some may even say 'self evident' -- for reasons which I may never reveal, or possibly in the subsequent paragraph, I'm seeking to start writing again.  That is the idea; told you it wasn't novel.

It would appear that the revelation of my return will, indeed, occur here: writing in the moment is meritorious, particularly for future endeavors, interest, and reference.  It allows one, if not explicitly, nevertheless the opportunity to relieve the moment, event, or idea in the spirit of the moment in which it occurred.  So, that is why I am endeavoring to return, because there is a whole 2 year period (or worse) that I've gone dark, and now I have no record of how I got to where I am today (other than those blasted mental constructs known as 'memories', prone to fault).

Half the reason I ceased writing was because of a perceived lack of time; it invariably takes me probably three times the amount of time to write anything once as it does anybody else--the benefit being that I only need to write once (a sort of perpetual/living draft).  So, that being the case, I will try to limit the subsequent posts, as holds true here, to stream-of-consciousness, else I will never get anything written, and I will certainly abandon the entire task.

Lastly, please no preconceptions that what I write will have any interest to you whatsoever; the function of this blog, as it currently stands, is a tool, or a means, to some other, broader , goal--which would be the same one that I just conjectured I would not be divulging two paragraphs ago, and shan't be after all.  Of course, this entire paragraph assumes I even have a 'you' to speak to, which I very likely do not.  Either way is quite fine, you may come along for the ride, if 'you' indeed exist.

Next order of business (and I may need a reminder, as I forget everything these days): I've been mentally rehearsing a blog about Taylor Swift that must be put to paper.  As I am a 25-yr-old male former engineer, this will also require a bit of explanation.  Stay tuned.

Nostalgia

I'm in the mood to write.  Write this second!  Or, right this second.  But, alas, I really don't have the time.  And what would I say anyway?  I've been away from the blog scene for what seems forever and a day.  My old haunts have grown and gone, the new, or young, forgotten.  And I, after all this time absent, am someone else. 

The last time I blogged, in the truest sense of the word, was Summer 2007, and the last time I had anything true to say was in November.  Now here I am on this rainy day in May, staving off work with a last ditch effort: peeking into the old, dusty chest of the internet which contains the blogs of friends from days gone by.  One in particular, with whom there is a torrid tale and dynamic history, brought back a twinge of excitement--nostalgic though it were--of those days when we used to write.  She, too, has vacated; there is nothing left but an overgrown lot in the center of a city where once stood an oft-frequented boutique of the most valuable treasures.

Maybe somebody looks at me and feels that way?  Remembers 'the good ol days' and, for an instant, almost tangibly, returns to that era, grasping the effervescent?  I can see it, too, when I read over my memories, and I don't want to be that dormant lot; abandoned.  For if nothing else, blogging has given me the ability to re-experience those memories as I experienced them in the moment, and to plunge into the darkness of silence, is to ultimately lose the vivacity of them.

QotD: Primetime Emmys

What do you think about Ryan Seacrest being chosen to host tonight's Primetime Emmy Awards?

I think Ryan Seacrest is wack.

And so it is, just like you said it would be.

Heathcliff : I guess what I'm wondering tonight is: if what ancient cultures believed were to hold true--that the male and female used to be one single entity and the gods, in their jealousy, split them apart and flung them across the world, and the broken halves wandered the earth, lonely and looking for their other half--if that were true, would he be the rest of you?

Catherine: he would

What else is there, after that response, to say?  All that could ever be said, all that has ever occured, is summed up by two monosyllablic words.  She, who after all this time still seems to be the rest of me, has found hers in my replacement.

I miss you.

Who Wants Some Jelly Beans

We had our company's interdepartmental barbecue yesterday afternoon, and my goodness you would have thought the engineering group was a bunch of kids in a candy store.  Consider, engineers work in a mostly male setting with little female interaction and are specialized in a trade that doesn't exactly lend itself to social discourse.  So when the finance group, purchasing group, and others showed up--ie - pretty women--we were like: "who are these people?" and devolved into middle school-like chatter.  Seriously, I didn't know so many attractive people worked for the company.  Surely I would have noticed anyone that desirable working in the same building as me.  But somehow this was not true; speaking with the resident gossip monger and fountain of other-people's-information, Red Fox (we'll call him), I was told "you must not get up to the fourth floor very often, huh?"  He then went on to list a roster worth of people throughout the event, gesturing this way and that periodically.  Which always begs the question why does he know who all these people are, where they came from, what they do, who they're married to, and with whom a scandal is about to break?  But I digress.  My point is that when one spends >40 hours of his week, every week, in same-sex solitude the sudden appearance of young, beautiful, professional women is astonishing; we forget they exist!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The book starts out with an analytical discussion of Nietzche, a person I personally distaste and an action which

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics)

Milan Kundera

temporarily led me to believe the book was going to be a philosophical analysis.  At times I enjoy books discussing such, but I was not in the mood--sitting on the beach in Ft. Myers, FL--and to my relief after the first two chapters the author began his story.

It is a complicated tale, not only in nature, but also in execution.  The story starts out with Tomas and his new lover, Tereza, then backtracks to the moment of their meeting, then goes forward, then backwards to Tereza's personal history.  Then it jumps to a new protagonist, a professor, and the story of his extra-marital affair.  At the end of the book we are told about the middle and later years of the Tomas and Tereza story, the ending of which we already know from the professor's tale.  Moreover, there is the pervasive theme of this "unbearable lightness" philosophy, and though articulately addressed and elaborately made into metaphor, is still nonetheless difficult to digest.

But, these complications may not be relevant.  The author leaves his readers with an impression.  Though some may find the material to be over their heads--I myself find the work warrants a second and perhaps even a third read--the vague gist of the metaphor floats through, and the story itself is worthwhile and enriching apart from its theme.

Kundera's style is something I have been hitherto unacquainted, and it is very interesting and novel.  He weaves his fiction in a narrative, but pauses periodically to reflect on his characters in the first person, and in so doing, addresses his readers directly.  It is a technique that breaks up the story and continually illuminates the fictional nature of it.  However, this doesn't so much detract from the book, but rather is in line with his intent to convey and discuss the idea of 'unbearable lightness'.  Also, I found myself partial to it.

The book left me with an impression I doubt will be shared by other readers.  In my own life, I had recently broken up with my long time girlfriend over broad and pragmatic ends--my general disatisfaction and perpetual anxiety over her three-month bought of clinical depression, for example.  This tale spoke to me of a bond, or love, that inherently can transcend the specifics. In the book it can transcend the repeated and shallow infidelity of Tomas, it shines through and rises above the misguided apprehensions of Tereza that she is worth little and Tomas doesn't love her.  In life it can transcend destructive months of depression, poor communication, a lack of personal growth.  To me, the story offered a profound taste of objectivity; there are aspects to interpersonal relationships that are so much more than the moments that comprise them.

Vox Hunt: Big Night Out

Show us a night out on the town.
Submitted by Baloo.

These are from a collection of photos I shot while meandering through my hometown with my former roommate one summer evening before I moved away.  I had intended to print the collection and create a sort of collage on my bedroom wall to remind me of home, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

QotD: This Time Last Year

What were you doing one year ago today?
Submitted by CassandraMorgan.

well:

A Foreword

If you raise your child in a home of uncontrolled alcoholism and substance abuse; if that home is a dangerous place; if your child is forced to assume the dynamic of parent to you; if you insist that your child is a failure at whatever she does since before she could understand language; if you emotionally abuse your child to the point that he is unable to function properly in any relationship afterward; if your maligned behavior and reprehensible actions are the direct basis for the absolute ruin of your offspring; you will have to answer to your maker for your filthy sins, and the infernal flames of the whole of hell will be waiting to lap at your deformed, dilapidated, disgusting soul.

I remember this.  At this time last year I was still dealing with the dramatic psychological disorders of a girlfriend I had broken up with five months before.  I'm so glad I don't have to go back to that.  I'm also glad to report she is doing much better, and wiser, now.

And now you know

I rest my case.

I'll let the pictures do the talking

Compare this, via UPS:

UPS Ship

With this, via USPS (US Postal Service):

USPS Ship

Now let's look a bit closer at this second one.  First, note that today is the 22nd, so the package has been MIA 'enroute' for 3 days over a 50 mile distance between Allen Park and Ypsilanti, MI.  Also, it spent 4 days in transit from NJ and lounging around the PA warehouse (when I checked the website earlier in the month it showed two entries for PA).  Then, for reasons I'm sure only God himself knows, it turned south and went to North Carolina!  WTF was my package doing in NC?!  So then it mosies on up to MI, four days after that, and who knows where it is now.  Mind you, this is a single bottle of cologne.  It has taken fourteen days in transit.  On the other hand, I ordered a computer chassis, or case, and UPS has it in my sweaty little palms in only two days.  Is this indicative as to the rate at which  the government is capable of getting a job done?

All I know is that USPS fucking blows.  Besides this aggravating debacle, I called them to inquire about the package on the 20th--after seeing it had left Allen Park the previous day and still hadn't been 'delivered'--and the woman I spoke with not only gave me insulting excuses (eg -- "the package will arrive according to the method it was shipped", and "we don't have detailed shipping information") but then hung up on me after I asked her why on earth it had gone to NC and she had replied with a variation of "I don't know".