Categories
personal

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck

Shot of a train in NYC with a subway sign

Been reading a lot about the whackjob that tried to off the Congresswoman here in the US. Apparently, the authorities are pouring through everything this kid posted online to get a picture of who and what he was all about.

Going through this kid’s internet life – based upon his writings and videos – they’re concluding that’s he’s a full-on whackadoo.

This fella named Riley wrote that when “I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

In Stalker, I wrote that the only thing to believe is the words that come out of someone’s mouth. Don’t ever assume, “I’m not interested” means “please try harder.”

Bring this all up, not just because of what happened in Arizona but also cause this acquaintance of mine took it upon himself to write “bitches” and “p****y” on my FB page.

And when I called him out on it, instead of an apology, he says I’m being insulting by saying he sounds like a thug. It’s just locker room banter, he says.

He misses the point. The phrase locker room banter implies a partitioned and segregated group – men in a locker room separate from women, work, the other team, etc.

Look, my co-workers are on this social site, my old boss, my kid cousins, my fiancee’s family, etc. Got no problems with cursing, got a problem with a fella that pops on, leaves an expletive, and disappears.

Thing is, he’s not a bad fella, not at all. He just doesn’t seem to grasp, as a 40-year old, that on the interwebs, everyone can see anything you write and it never goes away. It is, in fact, the polar opposite of a locker room. When you talk like a thug, is it any surprise then when someone in the world says, “You talk like a thug.”

You are what you put out into the aether. Every word is a pixel in your digital portrait. If you write it, own it.

Said it a million times: your friends mirror you. His argument’s that all of his friend talk like this and this is how they talk to each other. Which makes sense, his friends mirror him. But don’t mirror me.

For example, also I’ve got nothing against football. Just don’t watch it. And none of my close friends are crazy into it either. Just not what we’re about – no value judgment, just not our thing.

Similarly, I don’t toss out “bitches” and “p****y” like they’re papercuts; they’re not to me. They’re at least a bullet if not more.

If a thug doesn’t use words like that, who does? Show me someone that uses those words with someone they barely talk to and I’ll show you someone that talks like a thug.

Which brings me to another saying I like: Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s rain.

———-

Write this blog with the assumption that an employer, fiancee, family member might stumble across it. And if they read it, I’m sure I’ll come across as a very nerdy, clumsy, rum-loving, former skirt-chasing, insomniac. That’s ok, cause it’s true.

Wish I was terribly smooth, rich, and lucky; wish I were taller, wish I were a baller.

But I’m ok with whatever assumption you draw from this blog, cause the words’re all mine.

OK, except for walks like a duck, don’t pissĀ  on me, and wish I were taller, those I stole. But the rest…

 

Location: off to the garage
Mood: irritated
Music: when it comes to playing basketball I’m always last to be picked
YASYCTAI: Inventory your digital life. (hours/2 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

How to keep your 2011 resolutions

So how was your NYE? HG and I were feeling under the weather so we just stayed in and watched Inception. We’ve become a boring couple – which is a rather nice thing to be, actually. Did go out the night before to my friend Paolo’s for a pre-NYE party.l

A fella came up to me and said he read my blog. It was actually the high point of my night; it’s great when someone tells you that you did something that connected with them.

For this new year, made a list of goals rather than resolutions – after all, it’s important to have a target so you have something to aim for, yeah? I think how to keep these 2011 resolutions is to make them more specific and keep them manageable. And only have a handful.

Most times, just kept these goals to myself but when you put something out into the aether, it makes it more concrete. So here we go:

1. Finish manuscript within 60 days.
It’s been almost a decade since I started it so it’s about time; gonna slow down on other things to get this done. Inception blew me away with it’s complex storytelling. Gotta get in gear.

2. Practice German for 30 minutes a day, five days a week.

In the past decade my German has, if anything, gone down. Thought I’d be fluent by now.

3. Learn three new Chinese characters a week.
Ditto – can speak poor Chinese and German but am illiterate in both.

4. Wrestle three times a week.
Again, a decade’s gone by without much improvement.

5. Practice fencing 15 minutes a day
Think 15 minutes is manageable.

As for more general goals, plan to lose a little weight, invest more, actually have a wedding, and get more clients for the law firm. But the above are the big ticket items for me.

Just said that what we say of things in our heads make them real or not; might as well make them positive things. So, off to read some German for the next 30 mins while IĀ get to work.

Also los!

Location: the beginning of 2011
Mood: ambitious
Music: there’s reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last
YASYCTAI: Make a list of manageable goals for 2011. (60 mins/2 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

Aerelon: No one that was born poor wants to stay poor

Mona Lisa on a NYC Building

1983
Me: Why do I have to know what a salad fork looks like?
Him: (exasperated) Because, one day you’ll sit down with people that have a fork for salads and you’ll need to know which one to use. Now’s what’s that?
Me: Soup spoon.
Him: (beaming) Yes, soup spoon. That’s right. Good.

Thanks for taking the time to write a comment or email. Found it all really interesting the very different views people had. It’s funny but minorities & native-New Yorkers saw one thing (the second exchange) while non-minorities & non-New Yorkers pretty uniformly saw another (the first exchange).

As I wrote, that was the entire conversation; she never even bothered to respond. And rather than deal with any of the points I made, she sniffed, “Ugh, Logan, ugh! Privileged sentiments bore me.”

Like Nietzxche said, ā€œConvictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.ā€ She’s so smugly certain she’s right, she has no need to respond to new information.

Switching gears, you can always tells someone that used to be fat. They lumber. They walk as if they still carry the weight.

When I did lose the weight, onea of first things I did was ask my mom to buy me a nice sweater. She brought me to Alexander’s and I picked out a grey sweater from a bin. Got it big just in case I got fat again.

Wore that sweater proudly cause I got it at a department store. At the time, we didn’t usually get our clothes from a department store. When I told Grace in school about it, she laughed and said that only poor people shopped at Alexander’s and that I probably got it from the bargain bin. So I put the sweater away and only wore it at home.

It took me years to unlearn how to walk like fat person. Just like it took me years so that people didn’t immediately say, “You sound like you’re from Queens.” And years to know that what other people think of me is nonea my business.

Still, gotta admit that “privileged sentiments” made me pause. But not for reasons y’might think.

That I don’t sound like someone born to penniless immigrant parents outside an industrial park in Queens, New York, I take as a particular compliment. No one that was born poor idealizes it, only rich folk that have no clue.

Take it as a testimony to those parents who made sure, even though we grew up with halfa nuthin, we still got a proper upbringing – jia1jiao4. They taught me manners, how to love reading, and how to figure out which one was the salad fork.

“Privileged sentiments” – gotta tell my mom. She’ll take that as a particular compliment too.

And now, geekiness:

Location: hopefully Croxley later
Mood: lethargic
Music: You got the talking down, just not the listening
YASYCTAI: Seriously, stop idealizing things you know nuthin about. NYC in 1993 is hardly NYC when it was gritty. Try five years earlier on for size. (2 mins/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

Privileged nights in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Le Parker Meridien, NYC

Lobby of Le Parker Meridien, NYC

So, Le Parker Meridien was pretty nice. They were giving away two tix to Paris and called out the name of the firm first – my firm. Told my boss that I hoped it was me and then he won.

Thought that was pretty funny. I ended up winning a candle holder. It’s better than spending a buck to win a buck, I suppose.

The next night, had dinner with the lawyer that represented the first Guantanamo Bay defendant. Was a pretty eye opening dinner. Not at liberty to give away much but the facts are that the government had five years to prep against this lawyer with really only two people helping him. The government brought up 260 charges and only one stuck.

Makes one wonder how strong the government case was to begin with.

———-

Below is an actual conversation, verbatim, on my previous post with a female friend – not HG.

If you’ve read me for a while, I’d like to know your thoughts on the conversation? Note, it was a public conversation so she expressly wanted this read. Specifically, how do I come across to you and how does she come across to you?

I’ll give you my thoughts next time.

Her: I’m one of those people who miss the old NYC. I moved here in ’93 and there was a real sense that anyone could move here and create whatever life they wanted. No way does that still exist. I think when people say NYC isn’t what it used to be, what they are trying to get at is the diversity back then meant NYC was open to anyone. It’s not about grit being cool. It’s about a city that had a place for everyone, regardless of class. That’s just not true anymore.
Me: Heya! I think that, in that regard, NYC’s an even better place now that it was back then. We have a mayor that’s expressly pro art, with major art install oftions all over the city. Moreover, its safer and more tolerant here than ever. We still have places for everyone: artists, businessmen and – surprising even to me – families. I would never have considered raising a family in the UWS or Battery Park before and now it’s an option.
Her: Ugh, Logan, ugh! Privileged sentiments bore me.
Me: (I’m) perplexed. Are you saying I’m the privileged one?

That is the entire conversation.

Location: In my warm room
Mood: Still kinda irritated
Music: Who cares if you disagree? You are not me
YASYCTAI: Tell me what you think of that. (2 mins/0.5 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

Thanksgiving 2010

79th Street and Broadway, NYC

Me: 37. But in my head, I’m still 18.
Him: (laughing) We all are, Logan, we all are.

Hurt my neck wrestling the other day so I’ve been walking around with this ice pack around it. Man, after 35, nuthin heals the right way any more. Feel my age all of time now.

HG and I’ve been talking about my moving someday outta my pad. Moved lots in the last few years but it’s always been up or down in the same building. Been here for going on 12 years. A dozen years. Doesn’t seem possible and yet it is.

Once again, got nuthin better to say about the holiday than I said two years ago for Thanksgiving 2008.

Off to work and then to stuff my face like a fatty, fat, fat.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Location: UES
Mood: in pain
Music: High time we made a stand & shook up the views of the common man
YASYCTAI: Make a stand, shake up the views of the common man. (10 mins/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
business personal

My three business credos

Birds on a wire; pigeons on a streetlight, NYC

Think I’m gonna stop writing for Technorati. No major single reason but a few little ones:

  1. Been crazy busy with work and those articles take me longer than anticipated to write – plus they make change requests that eat up more time
  2. Kinda feel like there’s no real support for articles since they run them all equally without any promotion
  3. There’s no means of auto-publishing. This I understand cause they want some editorial control but it has ramifications for me.

My three business credos, which’ve enabled me to not have a “real job” for decades yet still live comfortably, are:

  1. Underpromise, overdeliver.
  2. Save 10% of everything you ever make.
  3. Be a man of your word

It’s the last one that causes my friction with Technorati. Said to readers that we’d publish weekly on Fridays and yet, no; the editors manually put up each entry so articles’re published when an editor gets around to it.Ā  They completely missed publishing last week.

It’s not as if I think people’re waiting with bated breath for my next installment; it’s that I said I do it.

When I say I’ll do something, it gets done. Even the people that can’t stand me know that if I give my word, it’s done.

Figure that my job’s to write and their job’s to publish. Y’can’t keep bugging someone to do what they’re supposta. Ergo, no more column.

It’s a shame – liked writing it and they weren’t bad fellas, just maybe understaffed.

Maybe I’ll move it somewhere else – any ideas?

———-

Him: How do we get to the museum?
Me: Just walk down Broadway and make a left at 79th Street. Keep walking straight until you see a large building that looks like a museum.

HG’s brother stayed over the other night and enjoyed hanging out in the city enough to stay for another dinner. We ended up doing Vietnamese the first night and pizza the next.

It’s nice when your significant other’s siblings and relatives aren’t jerks. Hoping they think that it’s nice that their sibling’s fiancee’s not a jerk too. It’s rough when that’s not the case.

Went to wrestle the other day and now my neck’s all jacked up; can barely move right now.

Man, the holidays’re gonna leave me a porker.

Location: at my desk, immobile
Mood: in pain
Music: I guess action speaks louder than words
YASYCTAI: Go to the doctor for a physical. (60 mins/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
dating personal

It’s the same old thing as yesterday

Couple fighting in Lincoln Center, NYC

Was taking a quick break from work this week and someone told me they saw an ex being interviewed on TV so I watched the vid. She looked good and it sounds like her job’s going well. I’m glad. Hard to believe it was over four years ago.

It’s funny, that guy that loved her so I don’t even know any more.

Douglas Adams once said, I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

We all think we’re the king of pain at one point or another. The sane people realize that we have no idea what we’re talking about.

Watched it for another minute before I flicked it off and went back to work.

———-

HG’s brother’s staying over as the first member of her family in our pad. This is cool cause, first of all, he’s a nice fella. Second of all, it forces me to get things done to free up my evening; dunno the last time I had a free evening.

Finally, we get to go out for sushi. Win/win/(win) for all concerned.

If you’re looking for me, look for the grown man in the corner stuffing his cheeks like a chipmunk with raw fish and seaweed.

Location: in fronta my desk, under a deadline
Mood: rushed
Music: I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
YASYCTAI: Get those projects done! (Four days/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
dating personal

Need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

Clock in midtown, NYC

Got a number of nice comments from friends that read my last Technorati entry as to Why Wednesday is the Best Night for a First Date. Tell me what you think.

———-

Was running around the city again last week when a client called me and asked me to come over. His dad passed away and he wanted my help addressing a few things. Told him I would, so that kills any free time mighta had this month and maybe next.

It’s a terrible thing to think but if the father had to pass, 2010 is the best year for a rich person to do so cause there’s no estate tax.

Course, that’s on a purely pragmatic basis; on a personal level it’s always too early for a loved one to go, yeah?

Been thinking a lot about life and death these days. Maybe it’s the weather.

Saw my aunt and cousin for lunch Saturday – also work related. My aunt told me that when she first came here at 21, she stayed, along with three other people, in my parent’s two-bedroom. That made seven people in a one-bedroom. She said she never forgot my family’s kindness. Felt pretty good about that.

Told them about my family’s name, Luo. It turns out that China just forced another of my “relatives” to have a abortion at eight months. Reason #2,234,645,549 why I hate China.

As for me, came home and filled out the life insurance paperwork that’s been sitting on my desk for a month. Kept putting it off. I’m not that old and I don’t need 50 year old male life insurance, but I figure better safe than sorry and to have a policy of some sort. Afterward, called my pop.

Me: …so then she said that there were seven of us in the apartment.
Him: (laughing) Were there? I don’t remember. Oh, we were poor back then.
Me: Yeah. It was a long time ago.

Wish I had more time to write.

Then again, when I had time to write, wished I had more scratch.

They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface

Location: my newly cleaned room
Mood: run down
Music: I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights
YASYCTAI: Prepare lunch. (10 mins/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
business dating personal

Love is… or Why you should be dating online

Online dating versus offline or regular dating

Statue in Tribeca NYC

Went out the other night with my buddy to some local watering holes – the first time in a while. We’re having a mild disagreement about online dating.

The way I look at it, it’s like having a relative named, for example, Aunt eMatch that says, “I’ve got a girl I think you might like.” In fact, it’s better; it’s like Aunt eMatch saying, “I’ve got a girl I think you might like – and here’s her resume, a buncha pics, and a writing sample.”

My buddy says that interpersonal vetting’s the best way to meet someone; can’t disagree with that BUT he also feels that’s why online dating seems to fail – because of the lack of connection, meaning a common friend. But the connection isn’t a person, rather, the stuff you’ve got in common.

When you’re a kid, you think love’s looking at someone and going, You’re so awesome, and she looks back at you and says the same thing. Adults are different.

Adults don’t stand facing one another but side-by-side. It’s why I always say that you want someone on your side.

That, in turn, is from that French dude that wrote The Little Prince: Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la mĆŖme direction, which translates to To love is not to look at one another: it is to look, together, in the same direction.

Love’s when you’re both looking at stuff y’love – like a Firefly episode you love, how you want to raise your kids, or your plant Harold -and you go, Do you see what I see? and she goes, Man, I *totally* see what you see.

That’s love. How you get it – online/offline – depends on how life puts it in front of you, but it’s always the same thing.

 

Location: going to New Rochelle
Mood: insanely busy
Music: look into their eyes, and you suddenly know
Subscribe!

Categories
Uncategorized

Yoked together with unbelievers

Church downtown NYC

Having a conflict of religion.

There’s this line in the bible that goes, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.”

Many read that to mean Christians should only marry other Christians. Here’s my issue with that – if that were the case, I’d not be here as one parent is a Christian and one is not.

But the line actually reads, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” – don’t think my parents were ever unequals – and wasn’t referring to marriage.

The issue’s that the bible’s fulla things I agree and disagree with, consider that women are not permitted to speak in church, and this is from the same guy that wrote about the previous statement.

Am accused of cherry picking the verses in the bible to obey, but isn’t that what we all do? For example, the Koran specifically says Muslims should grant safe-passage to anyone that requests it. And yet the radicals ignore that line for one that suits their purposes.

Stand, once again, accused of being a bad Christian but, to paraphrase someone, an ant on a hilltop is no closer to the sun than an ant on the ground.

The lack of grace never ceases to surprise me.

HG does not read the same book as me. This is not a (huge) issue for me but some people feel it should be.

  • Republicans don’t want me cause I’m too liberal and think Palin and O’Donnell are idiots
  • Democrats don’t want me cause I’m too conservative and don’t think a nanny state is what we need.
  • Christians don’t want me cause evidently womanizing and rum shooting aren’t approved activities.
  • Atheists/agnostics don’t want me cause I’m one of those religious nuts.

We’re always looking for home, hoping someone says, “Cm’on in,” instead of shutting the door in our face.

Disappointed. No one ever sees the invisible man.

Location: the world
Mood: disappointed
Music: here I am but why do I feel like the invisible man?
YASYCTAI: Be gracious. (always/2 pts)
Subscribe!