random thursday afternoon

how long til i know who i am?
is there still time?
all this time
going with the course of things
carried on, steering sometimes
often not
halfway through, or a third, or at the end
how can i know?
i know.

i like the line,
a mistake
auditory illusion
'pocket full of soap'
a meaningless idea
leads to thoughts of meaning applied to meaninglessness
ubiquitous
drunk after a halloween party
office party
thing of fiction

i want to talk
i want to dance
but i can't
how can i?
dream of moments in the future
happiness at last!
a moment in a dream
go with the course of things
or steer?
how can i know?
isn't steering part of the course?

if i think about it long enough
i start to believe i know already
if only i could tell me what i know

feeling very aggravated today, not going to say why. i want a new job. i said too much already.

intermittent intense photophobia the last couple of days, and much of today a strange buzzing distant feeling - could be that aggravation, but i'm voting prodrome. see what happens in the next few days.

ugh. is this even worth posting? i wrote a poem on patriot's day about the marathon bombing, but i'm not going to show it to you. it was four stanzas, four lines each, with a loose rhyme scheme as follows: xxxA, xxxB, ccxA xxxB. that's all you're getting.

i feel like my mind is a dismantled car engine, pieces scattered across the floor. is that how it seems to other people? my mind, i mean, is that how it seems to them, when they perceive it? what am i saying, when do others have an opportunity to perceive my mind? ugh. a dismantled engine scattered across the floor in a locked room, and the lights are too bright.

words

trying, trying, to get to a black belt in tkd. it's hard, because i am not good at tkd. i have no athletic talent whatsoever, but i try anyways. sometimes it goes well.

so i keep hurting my back over the years, and for the most part it's been less frequent in the past 3, what with the regular exercise. however, i hurt it badly, permanently, last year, after *resting* for a month. not resting actually, but working on a grant proposal, doing nothing but sitting/slouching and reading/writing.

so then, lately, i decided to start doing the sunday afternoon core training class, which is basically variations on sit-ups that you do in rounds, over and over again. it's good. i did it this sunday. the day before, i went to the grocery store, and forgot that we were almost out of rice, so i didn't buy any.

monday night we ate the last of the rice, so tuesday night, on the way home, i went by the grocery and bought two bags, because if you buy two you get a discount. then i went home. this was all on foot or by train. with two 15 pound bags of rice. i didn't perceive a problem.

wednesday night i reached out to lift up the toilet seat, and something in my upper back exploded. so no more tkd for the rest of the week, and it hurt a lot. it's mostly better now, hurts, but i'm not partially immobilized anymore. thursday and friday, along with the back pain, my right arm hurt and my hand was numb. so i'm suspicious that the damage wasn't just to a muscle, but to some part of the spinal machinery, although if so maybe it shouldn't be improving so fast.

i wrote a facebook poem about it:

people who stand
on escalators
cervical spinal nerve eight
the north wind
on cambridge street

in other news, i'm like most americans, preoccupied with guns lately. i don't think anybody has a right to have one, that sums up my opinion. oh well.

going to china tomorrow morning! that will be nice, except i have work to do that i'm not interested in doing but have to do anyways. should be alright.

**
also, this came out a few days ago, didn't know where to put it, it's pretty ordinary:

undirected urges
to assemble words
vaguely resembling
the task at hand

sitting quietly
struggling silently
ignoring tomorrow
avoiding time

congealing thoughts
pooling together
into my hands
out of my mouth

watch and wait
the page to complete
vaguely resembling
the task at hand

inevitable negativity

i am now (technically) a faculty member at harvard medical school ("instructor": about as junior junior junior as possible)! wow! and, (technically), no longer a postdoctoral fellow: i am now a "senior scientific associate". all so i can apply for a grant with a less than a 1% chance of getting funded (optimistic i am). so, something there. beautiful appearance of progress.

also, couple of papers accepted; probably will have a paper in PLoS-one, which is nice, but i'm third of four authors, so..

***

came up with this on the train, coming home last friday night (9-28-12)

on Cambridge Street
put away
your umbrellas
or they'll wind up
cast aside
in tattered heaps
abandoned

on Cambridge Street
thrust your head
into the wind
and bear the rain
it's autumn
it's not cold yet
be thankful

why do i keep writing poems

Batten down the hatches!
In this electric squall
Or else we'll be sent to the deep -
The web will drown us all.

So home I'll go! To printed word,
With pen and paper work.
No opportunity to drift
Through forums or to lurk

In hiding from my calling,
I'll forge ideas by thought
And stare down syntax, words reform
To make all logic-wrought.

So batten down the hatches!
And keep the ship afloat
For though I'll try to steer us,
The net may wreck this boat.

too far, too far

one hundred words
in haiku form
while waiting for
my flight on a
sunday evening
in september:

Rochester airport
September Sunday evening
me and three women

80s pop radio
electric piano solo
fluorescent lighting

now another man
sneakers, backwards baseball cap
the sun is setting

PA announcement
the guy's voice croaks like Stallone
a fine disco beat

two smartphones, a book
two pair boots, one pair flip flops
not a conjunction

what will our plane be?
CRJ, Boeing, Airbus?
another man comes

three women, three men
the humans are trickling in
going to Boston

the sun sets slowly
slower than it usually does
suspicious liquids

dinner of junk food
reflection of ceiling lights
in my laptop screen

i know this is stupid

I'm dusty,

I'm crusty,

I'm Augusty!

you're crusty,

you're lusty,

you're Augusty!

she's lusty,

she's busty,

she's Augusty!

you're busty,

you're trusty,

you're Augusty!

we're trusty,

we're gusty,

we're musty,

we're Augusty!

we're Augusty.

we're Augusty.

a poem about physics

begin by recognizing everything
once all facts are forgot

only when all was forgotten
can we say it was known

then the tense is correct

air presses me, i press the earth
but we don't pass through

these texts,
they say what we once knew

you learn the math
and the shape of space

you learn the motion of the worlds
and the age of the expanse

and you learn its end and beginning
because these are what we remember

but the heart is forgot
these pieces, that produce these ends

see how they mesh together

all have these types
and all are countered

some are manifest
while others abide

some transmit
while others hide

the forces four are only fragments
at the start there was just one

but we can bring them back
together with effort

give it a try
some of the elements
are soft

break them apart
to see what they are

break space itself
see what a piece becomes

nope

okay, so, that grant i applied for? failed. not discussed. not.. even.. discussed.

so, that's disappointing. hit rate was just 10-15%, but i felt like i had something. i've seen others with the same fellowship, and i don't think what i was proposing was of any lower quality. maybe a bit further from the norm, proposing things two steps from what anyone had done before - probably better to go one step at a time. there's also the fact that i'm obviously an underachiever. i can't hide it anymore - CVs don't lie. an underachiever with an abnormal proposal.

hurts my feelings, i guess. how can it not? well.. like i've been telling everyone, as a preemptive defense, i knew i wouldn't get it. a long shot. but it wasn't some self-fulfilling bullshit. i did my best. there's good stuff in there, and i'll do it anyways. but not putting it in the top half, not putting it on par with the rest of the proposals. that does hurt. i was hoping for a rejection despite a good score.

i think i'll probably still get comments back on it. i think. d** got comments even when his wasn't discussed in the last round.

let's rephrase the bit about being an abnormal underachiever. how about.. outsider?

let's get romantic.
tell the truth.
you see yourself as an outsider,
don't you?

i don't do it on purpose.
i don't try to be on the outside
in order to satisfy some requirement
that i've set for myself.

it's just what happens.
it's what i'm drawn to.
i'm drawn away.

you make choices
that put you on the outside.
your mentor is an outsider, and
you are the outsider in the lab.

in groups of friends,
i am the one who isn't
part of the group,
who tagged along,
happily accepting all invitations.

the underachiever.
the one you don't know.
i reject what they accept.

always the quiet one.
the different one
who finds himself in strange places.

it shines through
even in an NIH fellowship proposal:
you are a risk.

yeah, screw you. i wrote all that. i wrote it, then edited it into a poem. it's because of my self consciousness, not in spite of it. i am afraid to confront what i am, but i just did it. fine, i'm mad, and my feelings are hurt. i'm a pretentious kid. i'm used to it.

have to get used to this, kid. i hear there's a whole career of this ahead. have to keep writing these things and sending them in. some will succeed, some won't. i'll keep doing what i want to do, this is my guarantee.

zipper trucks

Yesterday I learned about the existence of zipper machines. We were driving back from Foxboro and there were all these little movable barriers on the interstate; I might have said something about them, and Matt explained that they were moved every day by big, slow-moving machines. I couldn't believe it, but you could see that the barriers were all linked together with springed, metal joints. I came home and looked it up, and found that link, and some youtube videos. I have to see one of these things in action...

Also, my poem output was way up over the last few weeks (like, above zero per week). They're all in drains like google or weekly report or facebook, so for posterity let's put them here. For my birthday, I made a haiku:
thirty-two years down
won't pick up another bit
for as many more

I thought that was clever.

Then, Murf decided to institute a Thursday google+ rhyme circle. Murf started with:
"i'm a serial gangsta, so don't you be hatin';
these rhymes are coming at you - 9600 baud ratin'.
i'm a cereal gangsta, pouring as smooth as silk
all o'er these fruity pebbles some quality soy milk."

I responded with:
"why's your baud so slow, must be messin' with your flow
don't hate, i got infinite bit rate,
symbols at the speed of light
like nuclear fission, constant information transmission,
a meltdown, crossin' synapses,
no lapses, my latency's good, it's understood 'cause i drink real milk
fortified, omega-3,
carbon chain, developin' my brain, got to sustain that spike train"

I was proud of that. Then one night this week I generated this for facebook:
"no frogs,
no crickets, 
no bugs at all. 
just air conditioners, 
and echoes of air conditioners. 
no, wait, 
i hear something- 
i hear a bug. 
what is it? 
what is it?"

That was kind of lame, but it was accurate. Then yesterday the Thursday rhyme circle was late. Murf began:
"Subjective speckle, what do you say?
650nm class IIIA
Black spots moving as I'm delighted;
Not in my same direction means I'm near-sighted."

And I responded with this:
"myopia, that's some shit
some negative lenses would fix it
stimulatin' those long wavelength cones
seein' red, thinkin' about homophones"

I am such a genius.

I think that it's important that the factors of a number which can add up to the quotient of a trillion tons of lumber can be factored in a manner that is quite a hefty matter to a monkey in a t-shirt that just hides how he is fatter than he was a year before when he was working quite intently on this complicated application which required information which he didn't have upon him since he left his licence on the table in the diner where he ate some scrambled eggs and shouted "NOTHING CAN BE FINER" and then ate some chicken legs.

A poem by me:

My hair is cut short,
We steamed a fish and ate it,
We walked downtown to see fireworks,
I moved some data around,
I typed a letter,
This was a weekend.
We also fried some tofu,
and stuffed it with heavily salted limburger cheese,
and it was pretty good.

Et Cetera plus Grammar Fix

What a nice day!
Oh, what a nice day.
It's very clear outside!
The sky is completely blue.
It's also very cold.
It really is very cold!
Yesterday was the same.
It was very cold!
It was also very clear outside.
Last night was the same!
The sky was very clear.
We could see lots of stars.
There were no clouds!
The air was very cold.
We climbed a tree.
We scared a squirrel.
Poor squirrel.

Ping

Why is it that,
When I'm in my
little room,
in the dark,
pressing buttons,
the radio outside
always sounds
like it's playing
Elton John songs?

Why is all
my food in boxes?

Sometimes when I
grab my
flash drive
I forget
to tell
the computer first,
and then
it threatens me,
with damage
to my
flash drive.
Sometimes when I
try to make something
too big
in Matlab
it just
turns off.
Disappears.
Why
does it not
warn me first?

I think that,
when they turn
on the heat
they should check
to see
or to feel
whether or not
it is
75 degrees
outside.
My feet
are hot.

I have decided
that midnight
is late enough
to be
in the lab.
Work a little,
less than
I should,
and play on the internet,
more than
I should,
is all there is
to do.
I
am going
home!

Sylvania, you are a lightbulb
300 watts, so very bright
But the coils in your bulb are shattered
I shake you, I hear them
And I see them roll about
You will never glow again
I'm sorry
But I like your reflector
And those two prongs in your back
You can live on my desk
For now.

Saturday Haiku

Trying to be light,
Hey, maybe write a haiku,
Such a bad morning.

Revised Haiku for the Space Shuttle

March? Not until March?
Give someone else the money,
It's not working out.

Haiku for the space shuttle

Space Shuttle! You're back!
I love you, and, I hate you-
Let's share this coffee.

What a boring font.

I can't believe that the doodly-do poem got more discussion, however indirect, than the toaster-being proposal. Maybe I should try to merge the two:

A toaster doesn't know
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
It doesn't see me frying scrambled eggs

The toaster doesn't think
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
The toaster doesn't know that I have legs

My toaster doesn't love me
but it's okay, oaster, oaster
It doesn't like to listen to music, either.