Señor · Mephisto's · Cell · Wall

Unfortunatly, she has but one major flaw. Just as a woman of indescribable beauty may have the mind of a Twelve year old Linkin Park fan, so to is my computer cursed with poor...functional capability. You see, she runs....Vista.  Now you have to understand that when Vista actually decides to be functional it is a wonderful operating system. User friendly. Malleable. Even responsive and logical. Most of the time however Vista spaces out more than most stoners.

Case in point, I suffered my first catastrophic Windows failure just today at the ends of Vista's remarkable instability. The other day I attempted to wrangle the otherwise uncooperative Company of Heroes into submission by installing a set of modded drivers that would cause to game to quite crashing and actually run. Sadly, said drivers failed to live up to expectations and fix most of the games rendering issues so I decided to go ahead and roll back my display drivers to my default nVidia factory ones. I go into the driver manager and tell windows to please roll back the drivers so that my games will run like they should. No problem, informs windows as it begins the process of swapping out drivers. Around 30 seconds after that a recieve message on screen informing me that "Driver Rollback has crashed and will now shut down." Que internal monoluge. "Hey wait a second. If Windows just crashed in the middle of messing with my display drivers, doesn't that mean theres no..."

2 seconds later darkness pours over my screen, replaced with white text on searing blue informing me that Windows cannot find its Display Drivers and will now shut down. Well fuck. I'd had problems with Vista's instability before but this was...pardon my French...abso-fucking-lutly bassackwards fucktarded. Luckily a boot in Safe Mode fixed the problem, but still...

Do yourself a favor. Don't upgrade to Vista anytime soon.

I miss you.

What golden words. They conjure up such memories. Memories that perhaps never existed, or have maybe been deluded and warped by an already nostalgic mind. It feels so strange to hear those words now. As lucid as those memories are they have become foreign. Decidedly alien. In another time there might have been someone who may have been missed. But whether or not he is hear now I cannot truthfully say, nor whether or not that entity was myself or a distant facsimile.

I did not know I could be missed. I did not know that there was anything to be missed.

Hrm. Bizzare.

Every night I dream of her and every day I speak of her in thick and golden tones of worship and adoration. And yet my angel remains far. My words trail distantly behind her and I know not of what I can do to secure the happiness of my raison d'etre.

I know she suffers. I know that every day part of her aches with a pain that I can do nothing to soothe and yet I carry on like a fool, deaf dumb and blind to her once again.

I love her so much. My Angel. My Love. My beautiful girl.
I feel so impotent.

I love you Angel. I love you. Please, please commune with me.

Please take care for yourself.

Scene opens. The other weekend I was traveling to Adelphi University in Long Island to see my friend Mike. Mike is a heavy set boy, who has about 2 inches of height and 75 pounds of body mass (mostly muscle) on me. His arms are the size of small bore artillery barrels and is chest is so drum like it you could probebly play Raggae on it. Mike has been "beating me up" (e.g. punching me really hard in the shoulder whenever he's angry/pissed at me/sad/bored/lonley/irritated/sleepy/hungry/horny etc.) ever since we first met in the forth grade, and for about eight years I just sort of cowered meekly as he inflicted his friendly damage and watched the look of smug satisfaction on his face knowing I couldn't fight back. As the years went on this practice of give and recieve became more and more trying, until one day I decided it pissed me off. That day was a Friday.

Michael Sosin and I sat down on his bed and watched Scrubs in his dormroom. What exactly transpired between us I do not recall, but I'm almost positive it was instigated by me with some combination of the words "mother", "your," "fat", and "whore." My childhood friend, as per usual, took the opportunity to punch me in the shoulder. It hurt. I punched him back. He sat there, stunned for one moment, then kicked at me. I kicked back. He punched again. I raised my arm and directed his punch i nto the wall with my forearm. He punched one more time. This was his mistake. I grabbed his arm as hard as I could in mid punch, swung over so that my legs were facing him down the length of his bed, planted both feet on his shoulders on each side of his arm, trapping said limb in between my knees and I pulled. Poor Michael Sosin, the 4th grade terror, was now in an arm bar. Several pained yelps later I let him go and took a good, long look at the suprise on his face.

"What the hell was that?" He asked.
"Fighting." I answered. We both stood up, stretched, and grinned at one another. Then Mike started punching me again, in the same serious manner with which any alpha male performs an action when his dominance is being threatened. I did nothing. I soaked the first few punches (about four or five), and then at around the fifth punch I saw my opening. I grabbed his arm, pushed it aside, move in with my knee and attacked his neck with a single open palm chop.

"Ow fuck! Shit Andy, where did you learn to fight!?" He stopped and glared with an expression less of anger and more bewilderment.

I said nothing, basking in the words I'd been waiting for since Grade School.

Moral of the Story: Life is fun when you don't take shit from people you know.

Then I went over to German class. Now I hadn't even thought it concievable for me to enjoy any sort of academic pursuits sans CTY, but lo and behold here I am in the middle of class, happily pouring over cases and cognates and nominitives like an unrepentent voyeur might glue himself to illgotten images.

I actually like learning German. I love the way it sounds. I love the way the pronounciations roll of the tongue. I love the figuring out the way sentence elements come together in deliciously alien ways to compose something wholly new and unique (and often untranslatable). And thats on top of my other classes.

Ahh...if only this school offered Arabic too. Language is fun. And then theres the dorm life.

Ever see Are You Afraid of the Dark? That harrowing staple of 90's era Nickelodian? Remember the Midnight Society? It would be pertinent to your interests to refresh your memory. A couple of friends on campus established a local "branch" of the Midnight Society at SLC. We meet on the Midnight of every Saturday in a (shit you not) cropcircle in some woods just under a mile from campus. Its awesome. No campfires though. The cattails that make up the cropcircle would light up faster than your mothers lacy underwear.

We've also established a fairly robost role-playing group on campus. I head up Vampire: the Masquerade and other Old World of Darkness (none of that new White Wolf bullshit), while the local Asian DM heads up Dungeons and Dragons. Thinking of starting a Paranoia group too.

Oh, and for the record, my delightfully mindboggling Falcon Northwest computer (its for college Dad!) arrives in three weeks, at which point I might actually be...y'know...alive for once on IM.

Till then, may the force be with you
~Anderson

However, video games are not the only culprit in the great game of Clue that is life. I too am a killer of the natural born variety. Case in point, my almost preternatural affinity for faux firearms. I recently got my G36 repaired and immediatly got to duking it out with Nick in a backyard brawl. What frightens me is that I've actually become noticebly proficiant with my airsoft gun, so much so that I'm actually a better shot with it in real life than I am in most video games, a terrifying but boast worthy prospect.

But boring man-bragging aside, theres alot to report. Kate's run off the Land of the Rising sun, leaving me like a puppy waiting faithfully at the door with nothing to do. I suppose I'll find someone to cling to for the next three weeks. Then again, I finally have the money to pursue...it. I also finally have the time, energy and inspiration to start writing again. Remember that untitled fantasy piece? Well it has a name and I'm continuing it now. I'm hoping to eventually get it published. If anyone knows ANYTHING at all about publishing a book, for the love of Jesus Monkey Fucking Christ let me know. It might come in handy.

Oh and did I mention that I look sexy in Combat Gear? SLC is going to have no idea what hit them.

Of course, it just simply wouldn't be fair for me to be able to enjoy my graduation. No. Such a blissful arrangment of events would be too equitable. Instead of frolicking about in the fields with my friends and braiding each others hair I've been sick in fucking bad for the past two weeks now. I just want to scream.

Still though, I suppose in retrospect even in perfect health I would spend all summer sleeping like a corpse in bed so perhaps it all works out in the end.

( Read the disgusting horse bile )

The weirdest part is that school has been such a dominating factor in my life I'm really not sure what to do right now. Do I go home? Do I go eat? Do I go look for friends? It's a question which I am not entirley sure how to answer. Oh well. So be it. I'm done with academic work forever. I say that because everyone know thats no one actually works in college. Indeed, when next you see me I will be smoking cannibis with my some "solid dudes", discussing ways in which "The Man" ostensibly keeps the little/black/poor/gay/all of the above man/woman down in between rousing bouts of hackey sack. I cannot wait! If anyone's wondering by the way, I'm going to Sarah Lawrence College for all those not in the know.

In any event, I haven't eat all day and my legs feel like a viscous jelly and I'll most likley feint if I don't get some food in me.

Less than three you all.
~Anderson

    Thank Gawd. Free at last, free at last, thank the lord almighty, free at last. Truthfully up until a few weeks ago I thought it doubtful that I would ever see this day. Had you told me Junior year I might be alive long enough to witness this...victory over the forces of pedantic academia I would have stared at you like a man possessed. But I sit here now with the s mug satisfaction that next Monday will be my last batch of classes. Of course, this smugness would not be so deserved were it not for the fact that I managed to get through the entire year without reading a single book assigned to me (out of my self-imposed protest of turn-of-the-century literature). This didn't stop me however from exercising my god given bullshit powers and writing a series of five A+ papers on such unread classics as "Return of the Native" and "Heart of Darkness (though in my defense I eventually reached page 32 of "Return of the Native" before tossing it away in sheer disgust.)

    Things are mellowing out on the homefront as well. Nick and I arn't fighting that much (not that we actually mean it when we do, fighting is just the way siblings say they love each other). I'm becoming less terrified of that hideous contraption that I so rue. In fact, I've even begun making regular calls to certain people to make up for my like of intarweb access.

    Progress has been made, no?

• My unmentionables suffered an unfortunate rendezvous with a shoe.

• The Nike corporation was involved with a hostile takeover of my balls.

• My balls are BAPE now.
  

• Theres a reason my penis has unsightly boot marks on it.

I just can't deal with this shit. Not right now.

Fuck, I don't know what to do. I honestly hadn't planned for this. Way to go Andy. You fucked things up yet again, surprise surprise. No wonder you're single, you're fucking useless.

I don't mean that it scared me in a "boy I can't believe that man killed himself" kind of way. No, suicides happen all the time. An innumerable portion of my social circle has had some sort of run in with suicide at one time or another, and I can't say that its never been a presence in my life. But the fact that he was egged on, the fact that those who delivered him to his end were not some group of deranged psychopath, nor were they some faceless cult of murderers. My guess is that every single person who encouraged that man to hang himself from the ceiling as they watched with hungry expressions were almost assuredly normal, every day users like you and me. I'd be willing to bet my life that right now one of them is just arriving home, loosening his silk, paisley tie from Tommy Hilfiger and giving it the most passing of mentions on whatever blog he frequents before sitting down in front of the TV people. I'd give anything to convince myself that those anonymous users were a special breed of monsters, unique and rare. But that would be a hollow truth. Behind those shields of anonymity those monsters were people like you and me.

Two kids. He had two kids. They were both twelve years old. Every time I mouth those words silently to myself I shiver a little bit. Could I have handled that when I was twelve? The optimist in me gives an emphatic "yes", but somewhere I know that I would have fallen apart, silent and alone.

I really want to take the moral high ground here, I really do. But I think on some level I wonder if I would have done the same? Is man a monster? Or Is he capable of good? Is our unique notion of "empathy" really all that serves to separate us from the animals, or is compassion simply an atavism borne from humanity's seemingly hardwired fear of social retribution. Without that fear of being dubbed a villain, when we're nestled behind the comforting distance that the internet provides do we take the form of that cackling hyena which we try so hard to dissociate ourselves with? If my time spent on /b/ has taught me anything it's that more often than not the answer is "yes." If the world's collectives religions are right and our existence is one big moral test, a sort of humanity wide ethical pop-quiz, then it would seem that at first glance we are bound to receive a failing grade.

So in lieu of this information I am forced to confront the obvious question, why do I believe in God? What reason do I have for continuing to soldier on in light of this terrible sort of anti-serendipity? Any self styled Emo rocker will give you the most logical answer: there is none. We are animals. Plain and simple. So why do I go on? Why do we go on?

I'll tell you why.

Its funny that inspite of seeing the violence on TV, the wars, the murders, the riots, the Holocausts my faith remained unshaken until I read that article. But for days after words I began to ask myself whether or not theres really anything that can redeem our collective beings. I soon recieved an answer.

Rewind to mid-March, 2007. I'm walking with my friend Michael to his house near the Southstreet Seaport. The winter air is cool and crisp in spite of Global Warming's lightning march. As we enter his apartment complex the door swings open and my foot falls next to a stack of newspapers I had always ignored. The TriBeCa Tribune is a paper I've never read before, despite living over 90% of my life in TriBeCa. Every day I passed it without giving it a second thought. Why that day of all days I decided to look down at the front article is something I can't tell you. But I crouched to get a better look at the front page article and saw something that renewed my faith in God.

Some might call it luck, others might dub it serendipity, others still might say it was coincidence. Call it what you will, I call it Divine Intervention. I don't know what possessed me to pick up that paper and read it, all I know is that what I found touched me to the coldest parts of my being. When my friend and I got upstairs to his apartment he began to boot up the Xbox 360 and start up a game of Gears. But I wasn't paying attention. I was holding this meager film of paper like a kid whose just received something he's always wanted for Christmas. I didn't know what would be in it, but something inside me told me that it was going to be important. I was not disappointed. It was beautiful. This is what we talk about when we talk about human compassion. Not a complex social defense mechanism built in to prevent us from being shunned by our pears, but that unique ability to look upon someone we've never truly met and reach out to help them.

Larry. His name was Larry. What a beautiful, unassuming name. My savior's name is Larry. I've read the Qu'ran, I know my way around the Bible, and I'm no slouch when it comes to Buddhism. But the words in those holy books, though beautiful, always seemed hollow and superifical. And yet its funny how all those volumes of scripture could never accomplish what these three flimsy pages of newspaper print did. They told me that we have something of value, that maybe we're not all heartless monsters, and most of all they told me that there is beauty in simplicity and that in the end things can and will be all right. I see it Henny Garfunkal's tears. I see it Elizabeth Rossa's emotional reaction. I see it in the memorial at Albert's. I see it in Valerie Perkin's comments. I see it in the charity of the anonymous printer. Most of all, I see it in the broken English of Sophie Rhee; that authentic love that seems to transcend simple linguistic barriers. Maybe some of us laugh and goad the man with two kids as he stands on Death's doorstep. But maybe some of us call the police. Maybe some of us mourn the death of someone we never knew. Maybe some of us reach out past the safety of our anonymity and hurt ourselves just so we can let someone, anyone, know that we cared about this person who we never really knew. I read the article at Mike's house and I had to choke back the tears while he motioned for the controller and looked at me like I was crazy.

Perhaps this is what Jesus was trying to tell us before he met his untimely end at the tip of Longinus' spear. Perhaps this is the wisdom that Mohammad tried to impart upon his followers before passed away and had his legacy ripped apart by jealous family members; that Faith isn't about sitting in a church and reading from a book and singing hymns. Faith is about clinging to that one buoy of hope in that raging shitstorm of Life and hanging on beyond all sound logic because you know that its all that keeps you from falling apart and slipping into the darkness.

Don't get me wrong folks. Life is still scary. Its still dark. It still makes my blood run cold. I still would kill right now to be in the welcome arms of someone who loves me. But I realize once more that theres a reason to go on, and whats more, a reason to appreciate life itself. Its possible that I'm wrong, that there is no God and maybe we are all along and that all this is some freak cosmic accident. Maybe its a hollow hope. But maybe that well placed lie is all that keeps my afloat in a sea of insanity.

I'll end this post with a promise. I've lived in TriBeCa almost all my life and I've never been to the Hudson Square Cafe, nor do I have any idea where it is. But as soon as I can I'm going to find out where it is and I'm going to go there, and I'm going to stand next to his seat and bask in the knowledge that everything will be allright.

I love you, I love you all.

~Anderson