Gray Matter Speak

The end is nigh

2009-05-22T03:40:03Z

Somewhere on the southern California coast a 30 year old Caucasian male of above average intelligence hurtles toward the eschaton.

At least, that's what it feels like. Morgan and I have been trying our best to use this last couple months that I'm in the area to "see ___(insert friend here)___ one last time." Meanwhile, I'm trying to wrap up classes, work on my rapidly expanding dissertation, complete all my hours at my clinical site, rehab my knee, learn to ride a motorcycle, etc. etc. And the beat goes on.

Where's the time for reflection? Where's the time for sacred silence? These days I just take it. For every spasmodic week's beginning there comes the inevitable Thursday power down. I begin racing between clinic and class on Monday morning and don't let up until Wednesday evening. You know you've been in grad school too long when Wednesday becomes the new Friday. But I take the down time anyway. I don't know a better way. Maybe during the next go-around in DC I'll have gotten a little better at not biting off as much. We'll see.

So here I am this Thursday evening reflecting on all the people and places I've see during what has become an epic journey west. I remember the summer before I flew out here. The dominant metaphor in my mind at the time was of the Israelites penetrating Canaan, the land of giants and over-sized fruit. That was what California was for me. At some level I think I was being called by forces unrecognized by me. I did know, however, that I needed to do something with my academic abilities. And so I did. Now I'm coming back east. California was more than I bargained for, and that is the Lord's truth.

What more can be said? California's way different from the east coast. Whereas my friends back in Atlanta were frequently caught speaking in computer code, my friends out here are frequently caught bickering about production quality or fall fashion. Now that's a big cultural gap. Back home it seemed like everyone was a programmer. Here it seems like everyone is in "THE industry." In Atlanta you're swaddled in the kudzu and oppressive wet heat, or else drenched in the coldest rain, whereas in LA you can smell that sweet dusty smell of desert everywhere, which is temporarily forgotten about during the region's two seasons--fire season and mudslide season. The desert has a beauty all it's own, and the mountains and Pacific ocean still take my breath away several years later. They're not the fall colors of the Appalachians, but they're pretty impressive!

People in Atlanta drive fairly sedately. Yeah, yeah...I know this seems a bit idyllic. But let's face it. People don't shoot each other with cross bows in an act of road rage or gun people down. In fact, whereas the nightly new disaster in the south is some kind of storm or tornado warning, the news de jour is a police pursuit of some wacko who doesn't know what a spike strip is. In Atlanta, there's a perimeter that grinds to a halt during rush hour. In LA there's a a spiderweb of undermaintained highways that grind to a parking halt at any random point in the week. (3 p.m. on a Sunday? Really?)

In the south, you visit Civil War sites. Out here you visit a game show, stand in as an extra, or take acting classes.

Hmmm...this reflection is nowhere near over...

To Be Continued...

another casualty of the information super highway

2009-05-20T03:07:24Z

There are days when I'm convinced that I'm a casualty of the information super highway. There was once a time when I could keep my Yahoo! Inbox down to a trim 25 messages. These days I'm doing good to stave off triple digits! I'm getting positively buried allegedly meaningful e-mail. Just you wait. One day thousands of years from now archeologists will dig down into the primitive remains of a city dweller at a dig off the California coast only to find said dweller's skeletal remains hunched over a primitive piece of machinery with arcane buttons. What a way to go...death by e-mail.

There should be a diagnosis in the DSM-IV-TR for this malaise. Something like "Cyber-fatigue disorder NOS" would probably do the trick. Maybe it's only a matter of time. The human body can only take so much exposure to constructed reality.

Last night's dream

2009-04-25T15:48:23Z

Last night I had a dream that I could fly. This has been a re-occurring dream, now that I think of it. I don't know why this never occurred to me before.

However, last night was different in that it was the first time that I told other people that they could fly. My wife could fly, as could my neighbor Valerie, a couple other faces that I can't remember...oh, and Paris Hilton. For some reason Paris Hilton could fly. (Apparently flying is hot.)

The first time I dreamed of flying I remember that it was quite an effort. Apparently I had to concentrate very hard, and then I would begin to jump. I would jump higher and higher, as if to gain momentum. Basically, I would jump so high and linger in the air for so long that if I flailed my limbs about and balance my body weight just so, then I could stay up there for a while. It was almost like something you'd see in an Ang Lee film. However, in last nights dream, I didn't even have to think about jumping. If I wanted to suddenly life off, I could. And I had a lot more maneuverability too! In fact, in last night's dream I took off running at a full tilt in the woods and then suddenly shot up through the tree, curving up at trajectory that was actually a little backwards from the direction that I was running. With flying, no mechanical devices were needed...just confidence.

At any rate, I can't remember the exact chronology of the dream even though I literally woke up minutes ago. However, some of the details of the dream are as follows. I remember that it took place over two days, possibly even a night and then the following day. I remember flying off in the darkness of night up the coast to this place on the beach. Somehow there was a camp fire there, but I don't know why. I think there were a couple flying friends with me, but I can't remember who they were. It was their first time though. I had to reassure them that it was safe, and that it was a lot of fun. However, they really dug it, and the next morning there were a few more followers! After a little hesitancy they were able to lift off too, although they didn't have to go through the whole trial and error jumping that I had to go through. They were able to just raise up off the ground. One of our merry flying band discovered a cheap ring made of different colors of transllucent plastic. It was somewhat of an exciting discovery. I told my soaring crew that there were plenty of rings like this lying around. (I'm really not sure why I felt the need to state that.)

I think that's pretty much it. I think it occurred to me at some point that the government might come after us to try to harness our powers, but they hadn't done that yet. It seemed to me that we would have better manuverability than fighter planes, since we could drop out of the sky at a right angle and disappear into the ground. So I think that would have helped with evasion. Ha, analyze that!

Well, that's all I have. Guten morgen!

Bagels from heaven

2009-04-22T04:55:43Z

Two days ago bread fell from the sky and almost buried me while I was looking for a quick lunch at Goldstein's Bagels.

Well, metaphorically that's what happened. But the literal truth of the matter ain't that much different. You see, the original plan was to duck out of church quickly, slam down an even quicker In-N-Out Burger, and jet off to the LA Zoo. As God would have it, the In-N-Out Burger on Santa Anita Ave. wasn't so in and out, which precipitated our pulling the car into the bagel shop next door. After all, if you're in a hurry then why not grab a quick bagel for lunch? Or at least it made sense at the time.

15 minutes later as we settled down at one of Goldstein's many empty tables, we were accosted by a middle-aged man in a red polo shirt. "You drink that stuff?" He probed, leering at my friend Scott's Powerade. "I drink coffee. It's all natural. That's shit's all chemicals." Slouching over the side railing next to our table, he stuck out a couple business card sized coupons. "Here you go. Free bagels. Do you mind if I had ten minutes of your time?" And with that we were off to the races.

It turned out that we were talking to Mr. Goldstein. Apparently what Mr. Goldstein wanted to do was "borrow our brains". Ten minutes of time stretched into forty-five minutes, and amounted to a barrage of questions ranging from "What do you think of the new menu I installed yesterday?" to "Did you know that we have a grill and a drive-thru?" And then there were a few mundane apocryphals--he had just bought a house in Asheville, NC and his son was about to head off to college--as well as the juicier tidbits--he'd been divorced and remarried and now had the wisdom of those experiences to support the ironclad law of the universe that having kids is hell on your sex life. For my part, I told him that the signage outside was essentially worthless, and that the menu he'd put up recently looked like a relic from Arby's. (Seemed like a fair trade to me...)

So, as the LA Zoo began to look like less and less of a possibility, Goldstein wrapped things up with the reassurance that when we returned once again to this location "you'll see changes!" When I mused out loud about what that meant, I was soundly informed that it would be a matter of two weeks. Apparently elated by comments about his franchise, he promised that "he'd take care of us." Take care of us? I thought. Did I just join the Jewish mob?

Jewish mob or not, what we did get was six dozen bagels, three bialys, a pair of bagel dogs, a pair of bagel pizzas, and a couple of other indistinguishable items. Then Goldstein slipped me a giftcard and decreed, "When you come here, you will not have to pay. Order whatever you want. Just let me borrow your brain." He grew ecstatic when he discovered that I was studying psychology, and insisted that I come in this Thursday to eat with him and his son. "I'm not doing therapy!" I spurted out. "No, no...of course not. But you think like a psychologist. I'd like to know what you think."

Well, it's a free breakfast. And, come to think of it, a free lunch. And a free dinner. Every day until I blow this town in three months. My mind still has trouble wrapping itself around this "free lunch" concept. Trying to convince myself that this bagel is free seems roughly equivalent to trying to convince my dietitian wife that Skittles are fruit.

But hey. It should be interesting, right? So, come Thursday at 9 in the morning PST, you know where I'll be.

Reflections on Leadership and Advocacy Day

2009-03-24T15:07:40Z

These last couple days have flooded me with nostalgia and a tinge of melancholy. For the fourth time, I'm in Sacramento meeting with other psychologists in the state, plotting our annual effort to lobby the capitol. Since my first year of grad school I've made the mini-pilgrimage up to "lobby day", but never the two-day build-up beforehand. This time I was drawn into more of the training and strategy, and the statement that "all politics is local" has become a more salient one. (There is indeed a realpolitik to this profession.) I'm going to miss being involved with the CPA lobbying scene. On Sunday night, between two glasses of Macallan 18 year--courtesy of someone's expense account--I was able to sit back and reflect on how far I've come over the last five years. I remember the first year when I skipped out on a final to fly up to Sac-town for my first "political action." Most of the day, I didn't know what I was doing, but voting and political action became a more tangible process. Fast forward to today, when I can hold a thoughtful conversation with our faithful lobbyist and discuss real strategies for mobilizing grassroots action. It has indeed been a rewarding experience.

It's amazing just how fragile a profession can be. What's so intriguing is that one smallish room full of professionals is all that stands in the way of half-assed legislative proposals, opportunistic scope-of-practice issues, and the general ignorance of elected officials who really don't know much about what good therapy can do for their constituents. The California Psychological Association has the membership of only 4,200 of the 16,000 licensed psychologists in the state. Kind of appalling, huh? Functionally, this means that less than 25% of the profession is speaking on behalf of its guild, and only 25% of the profession is committed protecting its legal integrity against the whims of the state. Compared to marriage and family therapists, whose involvement approaches upwards of 75-85%, our commitment to our field is disconcerting, especially when our state's psychology association is a leader among its counterparts in the country.

And yet, despite all of this, it is genuinely inspiring to mix it up with veterans who, a couple years ago, would have intimidated the crap out of me. This time around, I have the sense that I'm actually contributing something. I know something about the issues. I'm comfortable with the process of lobbying. I have a more intuitive sense about how "change" happens. I once heard Rudy Guiliani remark that "Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy." Just hearing some of the leaders in my field brainstorming about actual solutions fills me with a sense of self-efficacy, even if such "change" rolls on at a snail's pace.

It's Tuesday morning...hours before we visit the legislative offices of our elected officials. Mostly we'll be talking to staffers about my age, probably a chief of staff and, if we're lucky, the senator or assemblypersons themselves. We're trying to encourage them to oppose the govenator's effort to do away with the Board of Psychology, as misguided idea because it actually generates surplus revenue for the state. The Board of Psychology ensures the integrity of the profession by overseeing the acreditation process. Without it, we'd have a lot of wackos doing, er..."therapy." This year, like every year before it, is more important than the last.

Wish me luck!

Of Rats and Men: The Ecclesiastical Billy Corgan

2009-01-25T01:59:56Z

My first day as an ex-homeschooler riding the bus to high school was hell. To my horror and the subdued delight of my pagan classmates, the haggard smoker driving the bus aired an appalling range of musical offerings. Sitting in my cracked vinyl seat, I agonized about turning carnal by slow brainwashing to the likes of Metallica, the Cranberries, U2, and Collective Soul.

Midway through college I mellowed a bit, thanks in part to the Smashing Pumpkins. The conversion occurred that Corgan’s claim “The world is a vampire…” was an unwitting theological statement that I agreed with. Soon other artists from secular mainstream labels began to likewise distinguish themselves. Though tragic that I missed this insight in high school, I’ve been atoning for my ignorance with closer theological readings of today’s rock luminaries ever since. Billy Corgan’s bitter lament and the Solomon’s prologue—Everything is meaningless!” (Eccl. 1:2)—are not so far afield of each other. Although the zen-like existentialism of Ecclesiastes allows compatibility with countless rock creations (MGMT’s “Time To Pretend” gets my runner up award) my first love was the Pumpkins. 90’s pop culture is emotionally closer to Ecclesiastes than would be immediately apparent.

To be precise, Corgan delivers an overwhelming depressive void in “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”. None of the costs of living—his rage, the pain of “the game”, or the cool that comes with playing it—can buy deliverance from the oppressiveness of a meaningless life. I’m willing to go out on a limb here and speculate that Corgan is singing about his frustrations with a music industry that had “chosen” him as their golden boy and is using him for their own ends. Interpreting this song as an anti-religious anthem seems a bit simplistic for me, but regardless, the existential vacuum with which it reckons calls to mind Solomon’s cynical worldview. (Incidentally, this book was almost dropped from the biblical canon for its heavy use of sarcasm.) Like Corgan, Solomon fails to find meaning from a number of seemingly worthy pursuits: neither hedonistic indulgence nor the pursuit of wisdom deliver from the philosophical abyss. In fact, one of the temporary conclusions that Solomon arrives at in the opening chapters is that both fool and wise man receive the same fate, and concludes: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of this is meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Eccl. 2:17) Solomon, great teacher that he is, has a full-blown case of rat-in-a-cage syndrome.

There are limits to the similarities between these two texts. Ultimately Corgan only leaves the listener with the morose proclamation that “I still believe that I cannot be saved,” while the teacher eventually concludes that fearing the Lord and obeying his commands affords some level of peace and tranquility. Nevertheless, there is this tired cynicism in Ecclesiastes that never quite goes away, and it is my conviction that Ecclesiastes is, in its own way, a bullet with butterfly wings.

An interview at Walter Reed

2009-01-14T04:20:31Z

Finally, the dust has settled. I've got to say, when I reflect back on last week's trip to DC I am aware that every now and then it pays to be neurotic.

Let me back up a bit. Rewind to a scene that finds me waking up, bleary-eyed, on a couch in a cabin in the hills of West Virginia. For whatever reason I didn't sleep well and was arising from my holiday slumbers at 8ish. (I don't think I my head hit the pillow before midnight the whole time I was away for the holidays.) At any rate, I got up uncharacteristically early, showered, and found myself in a booth at the Panera Bread Co.--coffee in hand and laptop in front of me--contentedly web-surfing by 9 AM on Tuesday the 30th. A half-hour later I got the call from Walter Reed. My onversation with Ms. Shitforbrains arranging the interview something like this:

HER: "Hi, Mr. Gable?"
ME:"Yes, this is him."
HER: "We wanted to set up an interview for January the 7th at 1 PM."
ME: "Can I call you back to confirm? I'd like to see what my schedule is like that week so I'll know if I can fly out to make it."
HER: "Well, we're kind of running out of time. Besides, we can set up a phone interview."
ME: "I'd like to interview in person if I can."
HER: "Well I need to know pretty soon. Our schedule is filling up fast."
ME: "Ah, well then 1 PM on the 7th it is. I'll do it. I'll fly out there."

In retrospect, it's uncanny that the office manager caught me during the one hour of my vacation when I was coherent, sitting in front of my computer, and thriving with the kind of alertness that too much caffeine can give you. The rest of the time I was muddling around in a technological black hole while e-mail was silently accruing in my inbox like snow in a Maine winter. It was almost a miracle.

It was also almost a miracle that I found a flight from LA to DC for $277 on a weeks notice. Similarly, it was also almost a miracle that I was able to score a couch to sleep on from an old running buddy who lived minutes away from Reagan National Airport literally the night before I flew out. Mike even loaned my a car to get around town! Usually when I fly by the seat of my pants like this I usually get pretty bad skid marks, but apparently not this time.

Ms. Shitforbrains was not to be outdone, however, and she remained mostly unresponsive to multiple voicemail messages, e-mails, and other desperate pleas for favors such as, oh...an itenerary? or directions? or where to park? I left my friend's house at 9:30 AM for a 1 PM interview hoping that all of these things would just work themselves out. One hour and fifteen minutes of DC traffic and one hour of fruitless parking space searching later, I showed up at Building 6 for my interview. And yes, you're right. I had to figure out (1) that the Department of Psychology was in Building 6, and (2) where Building 6 was. Somehow I managed to show up an hour early, whereupon Ms. Shitforbrains promptly asked me, "Do you have copies of your letters of recommendation? We don't have them. Oh, and do you have copies of some of your other application materials? We don't have those either."

Amazing. Absolutely stunning. Apparently at Walter Reed, the civilians don't know their heads from their asses. Ms. Shitforbrains used every bit of that hour to cobble together a rudimentary collection of data for the interviewers to see, while I sat in the waiting room and practiced deep breathing.

Things got better from there. The actual interview went well. The psychologists who interviewed me geared in a somewhat psychodynamic direction, and I think I was able to score points off of that. I think my responses regarding the whole religion and psychology discussion were well received as well. I came away energized. Part of it may have had to do with all of the cool technology some of the staff had for educating warriors in transition on biofeedback. At one point I was shown to a seat in the egg-shaped noise-cancelling chair and given a small heartrate monitor to clip to my ear. The graphs the appeared on the monitor in front of me then began tracking my brain states, solely based on heartrate variability. That was really cool--it could tell when I was calm and when my thoughts were racing simply bases on HR data from my earlobe! Furthermore, the supervising psychologists seem to really support the idea of me getting my own analysis, which would be really sweet. All in all, I'd say it was a good site for internship.

The rest of the trip was gravy from there on out. Mike also lent me his rail pass so I could waltz around the national mall to my heart's content the next day before I flew out of town. Very sweet! I would soooooo love to live in DC. Could it be possible? We'll see... but if this trip is any indicator, then it might actually happen.

There a two kinds of "free" WiFi at coffee shops: the kind that works, and the kind that doesn't!

2008-12-17T04:19:33Z

Five days after finals have ended, I am only now beginning to unwind mentally.

This quarter was particularly brutal. This time around, the coursework itself wasn't the problem. Rather it was the constant errand running and reference chasing that come with the process of applying to internship sites, combined with the emotional assault on the ego that come with such a process. The army only complicated things...I had to go through three sergeants at the recruiters before I found one who knew his head from his arse about protocols for military interns. I don't need to go into the tit for tat of it all, but let me just say that I'm glad for a temporary reduction in weekly deadlines, commitments, and the ubiquitous set shifting that comes from having to manage the minutia of incremental accomplishment of micro-goals on multiple fronts. My frontal lobes can only handle so much. It this point I'm ready to throw my hands up in the air and just let the professional current take me wherever it takes me.

But enough with the geekspeak. This afternoon's rant is a little more elementary, and goes like so: if you are a coffee shop that boasts of "Free WiFi", I should not have to spend a half hour trying to figure out how to access your network! Is it really that complicated? Seriously, I will jockey LA traffic in my '91 Lincoln, Grand Theft Auto style, to frequent a dive that I know will give me a reliable, problem-free connection and a cup of joe. By contrast, pissing away a half-hour trying to get internet totally wrecks whatever pensive, zen-like reflectiveness I was hoping to cultivate by soliciting said java joint.

Starbucks is the worst. And trust me, I've tried to give their stores a fair shake, if for no other reason than that they are more numerous than vegans at a Whole Foods. They've constructed an allegedly process whereby you wait in line, by one of their cards, sit down, register with T-Mobile (or is it AT&T now?), log in, begin working away on your computer, and then continue to pay for time after your free hours are up. In fact, the first two hours are free, which is supposed to be a good deal. Of course, if you don't have a card or an account, just sitting down and hopping online is not an option. Neither is problem free internet if you're a second-timer. In fact, I've never actually been able to just sit down and type away.

You would think that easy access would be competitive edge for other mom and pop shops, right? But no! It's not even like that at other independent shops. More than once I've been lured in by the prospect of easy web surfing, only to be rebuffed. Then when you acost the barista to ply their tech savvy, you quickly learn why he is a barista and not something like oh, say, a computer geek...Most baristas in this situation tend to run and hide, with brief verbal palliative "I'll be right back after I take care of these customers..." (Somewhere I hear Alanis Morissette singing about a fly in her Chardonney...)

The one haven that I have to give props for is the Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood. That thar's a dependable lair. I can leave my apartment at a few minutes past 11--PM, mind you--and still get in a solid three hours worth of work, blissfully surfing away to my heart's content. It's not even that far away either...I can get from living room to coffee in about 15 minutes flat. Delightful! Oh the sweet ecstasy of not having to trouble over whether or not the late night latte I bought was in vain! Isn't that the worst?

Cheers to you, Pig. In all my California years, I have not found your equal this side of the states.

the shopping blues

2008-12-06T01:42:53Z

Yeah...so what to get my folks for Christmas.

It's amazing how the task of finding the perfect gift becomes exponentially more incomprehensible the older you get. I used to be a wiz at this...when I was twelve years old. I knew the perfect gift for everybody. Now? Lord only knows. Living on the west coast away from my parents and sisters makes it all the more difficult. It's not like you can bag a smooth bottle of tequila and slide it under the tree. I don't think you can mail alcohol into Georgia, can you? And it seems that the trend this year is to ask for perishable items.

And furthermore, the older you get, the more demure the responses of your family members become when asked "what do you want for Christmas?" The stock answer that I get served with is, "I just want your presence" or "we haven't really thought about gifts this year" or "it's really not important for us to receive gifts" yada yada yada.

Well dammit, I like gifts. I like giving them, and I like receiving them. If the good king Wenceslas can do it, so can I. Yes, yes, yes, I know that he's one for helping out the poor, and so one and so such. I'm all for that. It's just that he's also a kind of Santa Claus figure too. Can you somehow give but not receive? I really want to get my family gifts!

I think it says something about you if you don't know what you want. It's okay to be up front about some material item that you might want. Desire and compulsion are two different things.

Dear Lord, I hope no one thinks I'm a greedy bastard for this tirade.

thar tis

2008-12-04T03:26:28Z

Green-yellow spear-leaves radiate through the window screen,

pregnant with the hope that resurrects perennially after the completion of the ten page draft.

Sleepy neurons nourish each other once again

hours after the all-nighter. Already a more benign stream

of consciousness bathes me,

steamy and warm like wet terrycloth.

Face flushed with pink capillary glow,

My higher-order cognitions reassert themselves.

Now a razor cuts through the foam to remind me

I am not the beast that all four cups of coffee pronounced me to be at 2:49 A.M.

And yes, yes I do feel that God is there again.

Charlie the Snow Box

2008-12-01T14:41:39Z

Color me red and green folks! I'm ready for Christmas.

Last night our erected its snow man. Yes, that's right. I live in Pasadena, CA. We don't get snow. Ever.

Of course, this does not mean that snow men are off the market. (Actually, with the financial downturn, there are a lot of men looking for work.) Our guy, Charlie, is actually kind of square. He makes a lot of use out of the cardboard boxes that the good neighbors of our apartment complex. Come to think of it, it's nice to know that our man Charlie recycles. I'm not sure what he'd do with the cotton snow we sheathed him in, but I'm sure he'll make do.

In lieu of a more timely thanksgiving, here's what I'm thankful for: an apartment complex full of neighbors who enjoy each others' company. We help each other move in and out and celebrate holiday randomness, babies, and board games. In some ways, the place feels faintly like a church. This is especially important in light of the fact that the misses and I left our last church a few months ago. It's to the point now that I will forgo studying at times to participate in community events. I'm not sure if this is a good thing given how burnt out I am, but it refreshes my soul. That can't be all bad.

And so, my hat's off to you Charlie. If there was ever a way to simultaneously be a square and embody communal benevolence, you have done it.

a bold new step

2008-11-30T03:59:48Z

Well, it's been a while since I procrastinated this badly. Nevertheless, in a way I was productive. You see, I'm making the switch from weird,creepy anonymous blogger to friend-with-a-blog. After countless hours of reviewing five years worth of content, I've now successfully labeled and categorized most of my posts. The idea here is that various people who I actually know in real life will be able to read about what I'm thinking. Transparency...what a concept huh?

Of course, not everything I am writing pertains to everyone in my life. Different people have differential access to my blog history. The idea here is not so much to veil myself with multiple layers as it is to spare all of you from at least some of the self-referential ennui latent in much of my rambling. This is a big step for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing who reads. It could be only a couple folks, or it could be more. We shall see, won't we?

I wish there was a way I could bring some of the highlights to the forefront of my page. I'm somewhat technologically challenged (one of life's great ironies, considering that I'm doing a dissertation on virtual environments.) Hopefully I can figure out a way. Ideas, anyone?

graymatterspeak @ 2008-11-20T20:41:00

2008-11-21T04:45:05Z

Yet again, my head hurts.

I will say, however, that my work at the VA today was very satisfying. Veterans inspire me as a clinical population, especially in their ability to support each other in a no-frills, macho yet elderly kind of way. There's something fascinating about watching 70 or 80 year old men with all manner of bodily malfunctions sit and commiserate with each other.

Very cool!

Bad Religion Does Theology: Close Encounters with Job

2008-05-07T05:40:00Z

After much sweat and trepidation, I have labored to produce...[drum roll]...

Bad Religion Does Theology:

Close Encounters with Job

"Father can you hear me? How have I let you down? I curse the day that I was born and all the sorrow in this world." Bad Religion is asking a simple question. God is on trial. Whether or not you realized it, our own beloved alt rock stations are doing theology under our very noses. If you've ever weathered the existential angst of an intro level philosophy class, the death of a loved one, or even a failed attempt at sidewalk evangelism, then you're familiar with this question. However, what makes Bad Religion's hit single "Sorrow" so striking is that the question it poses bears a provocative resemblance to the book of Job from the Bible's Old Testament. That question, simply delivered, is about the problem of pain.

Perhaps the dead giveaway is lead singer Greg Gaffin's close paraphrase of Job 3:1, where Job curses the day of his birth. Their questions are the same. Gaffin groans "Will you guide me now for I can't see / A reason for the suffering and this long misery", while Job makes it more personal: "I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me" (Job 30:20-21). To borrow a well-hackneyed cliché, Gaffin and his biblical counterpart are profoundly concerned with the question of why bad things happen to good people.

However, if the question in these voices grips you, their resolution is every bit as provocative. "Sorrow" concludes with a wistful proposition that sounds almost downright apocalyptic in the biblical sense of the word: "…when the only true messiah rescues us from ourselves / It is easy to imagine…there will be sorrow, no more. Note to self: when the godfathers of punk sing about the possibility of a messiah coming, maybe the world really is coming to an end.

Yet if Bad Religion shocks us by entertaining the possibility of a messianic return, God's "answer" to Job is every bit as provocative, and amounts to the following—"Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" (38:2) Paradoxically, Job repents "in dust and ashes" (42:6). Lest we be too quick to dismiss God's response, it should be noted that Job's acerbic assaults on God's character are met with God condescending to entertain such a dialogue. It is the experiential encounter with God's presence, not theological rhetoric, which ultimately compels Job toward repentance before God and resolution of his alleged philosophical incongruities.

Either way you slice it, you've gotta admit that punk and Job have an interesting relationship with each other. As far as I know, the gentlemen from Bad Religion aren't Christians. I could be wrong of course. Nevertheless, their honest commitment to the fundamental questions of human nature allows them to get traction with sacred texts. Now that can't be all bad, can it?

graymatterspeak @ 2007-12-13T11:39:00

2007-12-13T19:49:39Z

Life is good.

I just spend the most delicious hour in LA traffic and was happy as a clam! Folks, if you ever get the means to pilot a '91 Lincoln Town Car through masses of hurtling metal and wheels, I highly recommend it. For some unexplainable reason it was a delight simply to cruise along on a cushion of faded maroon velvet seats, rumbling along in a cloud of gasoline and thunder. And music! I'm such a music junky. And my musical standards are actually pretty low. It doesn't take a high level of musical excellence to make me happy.

By all normal standards, I should be mildly peeved. Traffic was how it typically is. But just minutes ago I had the windows down with the heater blasting at my feet, the 50 degree wind blasting at my face, the mountains dwarfing all the motorists, and an amiable sun radiating its benediction down on us all. Delightful.

That's all I have to say. Cheerio!

graymatterspeak @ 2007-09-25T06:57:00

2007-09-25T14:06:25Z

Alright. It's the start of yet another quarter. 15 semesters and 20 quarters down, 12 quarters to go.

As usual, I tell myself that this time I really will stick to a plan of NOT doing too much and NOT getting too busy. Most likely I'll get way too overwhelmed about midway through the quarter, having gotten behind in my classes because of procrastinating and committing to too many things. Nevertheless, I'm trying to practice being more mindful about what is importantt and letting go of what isn't. I really do want to slow down and value what I am doing more even as I avoid filling my schedule with activities that do little but artificially and temporarily inflate my sense of self.

So here's a simple question: how do you know when you're too busy?

And another: how do you know what is important and what is not?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

graymatterspeak @ 2007-09-17T21:23:00

2007-09-18T04:38:07Z

Dude. Every time I come away from an event where I've been networking I feel so invigorated. Especially when networking involves raising interest in my new campus group. What a rush! It's so fun to be in the driver's seat of a team attempting to launch a new organization. I've got big dreams...we're gonna meet to talk about state legislation that affects the scope of practice for psychologists, and we're gonna gather a collection of grad students to go lobby the capital in the spring. The school has now cleared us to receive financial support, but we may still try our hands at grant writing. Meanwhile, I'm networking with the local chapter of the California Psychological Association and the school's Psychology Graduate students Union to raise awareness about our group as well. This could be something big I'm getting myself into...

I guess I'm so excited because this is one time that I get to be a leader. I get to create something new. So often I've been lurking around in the shadows, vascilating. This time is different. I get to be out in front, inspiring and motivating. I like that. I hope it works.

The Dodgers

2007-09-05T06:44:22Z

So I'm not the most hard core baseball fan. Really, I'm not much of a sports nut at all.

However, the Dodger seed was sewn very early in my developmental history. At age 6 I couldn't have told you what a batting average was, but I knew that the Dodgers were the good guys. And now, having once again returned to Dodger territory, pulling for the home team feels a bit like getting back to my roots. Lord knows, they need it. Having totally thrown away their division lead from earlier in the season, they're four games down with not too many left in the home stretch. Nevertheless, though I'm skeptical about their chances of even landing a wildcard spot, I've gotta root for the home team.

Oh for the days of Hersheiser and Lasorda...

graymatterspeak @ 2007-08-30T12:46:00

2007-08-30T19:52:28Z

Tagged by colorkit

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

Fact: I have met and substantially conversed with no less than four gold metal sprinters in my life. One of them had a locker next to me during my competitive college years at Tech.

Habit: Before writing a paper I make a pot of coffee, drink a cup, and then promptly take a nap. In that order. Don't ask me how it turned out that way...it just did.

Quirk: I have run 110 miles in one week, including a 22-mile run, but have never run a marathon.

Fact: My favorite piece of artwork is Edvard Munch's "The Scream."

Quirk: Even though I think of myself as a fundamentalist, I love beer and dancing and believe that therapy can be a profound instrument for spiritual and psychological growth.

Habit: Much to my chagrin, I have recently found myself drumming my fingers on the nearest surface during intense conversations...just like my dad does. Creeps me out.

Fact: At high school graduation, I was given an award for "most well rounded." Now if that's not an invitation to narcicism, I don't know what is.

TAG!!! Hmmm...now for the most difficult task. I actually know very few of my LJ "friends" in real life. With the exception of wherecanigo, downwithflames, and firmament, LJ is for me a largely anonymous enterprise. I will have to select the remaining folks based on coolness: dd0lly, kid_prometheus, selfishlyme, and akdan1984.

graymatterspeak @ 2007-08-30T12:18:00

2007-08-30T19:42:07Z

Academic Funding Foundation.

Remember that name, folks.

This is an organization that has called my apartment countless times, multiple times a day. They want to consolidate our loans. We are an object to them. My civility is their excuse to keep pitching a product. To them, "No" is a meaningless two letter combination.

So I went after names. When the call came through, I took the lady's name. She told me...Cathy Lawrence. I wanted to know the name of her supervisor. She told me...Max Allen. I politely asked her to pass me on to her supervisor. (She's probably just a cubicle jockey, trying to make ends meet.) The line goes dead briefly, then a a male voice starts talking. "Is this Max?" I say. "No, this is Michael Carter," comes the reply. "Where's Max?" I ask. "He not coming in today." Having secured a vice-like grip the conversation, I proceed with the interrogation. What was the name of this organization, how did they get our leads, do you realizes that we've been getting multiple calls a day for the last couple weeks, yada yada yada. Michael made a tepid attempt to get back on track by asking if my wife was available. (She had mistakenly humored some poor sap several nights ago, not wanting to be rude, and now they were "following up.")

That's when I lost it. I swore, cursed and shouted with an ascerbic venom purposely designed to melt Michael's phone ear clean off of his scalp. I confess. I was worked up. I still am. If you notice, this is probably one of the only times that I am using actual peoples' names. Usually I don't do that. That's how mad I am.

I am ready to hunt the following people down:

Max Allen
Michael Carter
Academic Funding Foundation

Every time a telemarketer calls, I'm going to take names and numbers if I can. I'm going to keep asking for supervisors. I'm going to cross-examine the bosses and hold lengthy conversations with the telemarketers until I find people who are willing to treat me like a human being and not an object. If I have to, I will write letters and make some phone calls of my own. I will not rest.

Max Allen. Michael Carter. Academic Funding Foundation.

Travian

2007-08-18T06:21:12Z

OMG. Travian is the most addicting game ever.

Not that I'm the most hardcore gamer or anything. But if you want to agree to a NAP with me my village name is Jutland, and I'm Ahimaaz. I'm in the southeast quadrant US server 3.

Let's get on with the killing!

Hebrew National hotdogs are your friend.

2007-07-07T22:28:19Z

Today a great marital wall has been torn down, thanks to the Hebrew National.

My wife likes hotdogs!

Well, at these this assertion is theoretically possible now, due to her sampling of a Hebrew National 97% fat free beef frank and all its luscious American ball park goodness. Only minutes ago, the bite-sized morsel of all beef hot dog was lifted to her mouth, where she ate, savored, and pronounced that "It is good." All hail those witty fans of kosher freshness, who have pierced through a dietitian's scorn of weiners and the amalgamated "meats" encased in them. The Hebrew National beef frank is far superior in that it does not have a casing and is not greasy at all! I just know that it is only a matter of time before hotdogs are once again restored to their rightful place in the refrigerator door of this household.

It is a good day.

And just like that, I was gone...

2007-06-27T01:59:33Z

I'm running again. Sonofagun.

Today I showed up to practice with the club team I've been running with after having not run a step in months. I just knew my knee wasn't up to speed again. In fact, it had been getting worse, I thought. Surely my quads were atrophying. I just knew it.

So imagine my surprise when the coach tell me to run two miles. Of course I obliged. After all, he's the coach. But honestly, I expected him to put me through the usual routine of stretches and drills. Nope! Just go run two miles.

And I did!

Does this mean my knee problems are over? Is it really that simple? It seems too good to be true! Well I thank God for the two miles I did get to run.

Dayenu.

Growing Edges

2007-06-26T02:08:42Z

There are definitely several little tasks--let's call them growing edges--that I feel are healthy, and that I want to cultivate. In a feeble effort to keep them straight, I'm going to try to list them here, as follows:

--Practice deep breathing.

--Make serving others a way of being and relating, not a transient ideal.

--Focus on breaking big goals up into small tasks.

--Generate momentum earlier in the morning by doing these tasks.

--Document EVERY monetary expense as soon as it happens.

--Remind myself that God really is gracious.

I may need to return to this list from time to time. Actually, I'm a little worried that I'll forget these growing edges. You know, so many things go through our minds and we say to ourselves, "Wow, that's neat! A truly inspired notion...I want to do that." Then, a few weeks later we're scatching our heads trying to remember what exactly that idea was. Maybe six growing edges is too ambitious. Unfortunately I just don't know how to narrow it down.

Ah well. 'Tis how it goes.

Dark Night of the Soul

2007-05-08T02:07:37Z

Have you ever had a "dark night of the soul?" If so, what was it like for you? How did it come, how did it go, and what did you do to cope?

I'm very curious about this right now.