From the archives

Here's a poem I wrote in 1997:

Solomon was wise and proud
And often times he had a crowrd
Of revellers, in his royal digs,
To sip the wine, and munch the figs;

And nothing fare escaped his gaze
(He had more wives than months have days)
Yet he himself could never sing
The sad, old songs of his father-king.

For ever sorrowful a thing
Was it for David to be king.

It is not so that every fall
Is by pride prepared withall,
And every bruise ordained to us
By God's objective calculus.

But rather, if we choose to live
Then bruises take and bruises give
Shall each of us, a-stumbling blind,
Illumined, if at all, from behind.

And so, as blessing and as curse,
I look to David as my nurse,
And not the glories of his son
Whose wisdom circumspect I shun.

And may God grant me strength to sing,
So strong as David, sack-cloth king.

Immigration

So, I am working my way through the paperwork required to study in Canada. It is kind of a complex process: I need to file with Quebec to get a CAQ (Certificat d'acceptation de Québec pour études) and then with Canada itself to get a student visa.

It is not too difficult a process, but it has definitely forced me to start organizing my life a bit.

The most important political moment today

was not about Zarqawi. It was about the Internet, that thing that we've all taken for granted. And about the way AT&T wants to turn it into a giant shopping mall.

Listen to Rep. Slaughter speaking about Net Neutrality.

Execution plaza

This was painted by Iraqi artist Muayad Muhsin, and is called "Execution plaza." Doubtless it will not be as celebrated or villified as his picture of Donald Rumsfeld, but I find it a much more beautiful and tragic image. The blindfolded woman, literally petrified, is meant to represent Iraq. The way her body turns one way, and her head the other, captures the contorted fate of that country viscerally.

A somewhat trying day.

I am moving to Montreal in two months, and I thought I had an apartment lined up. My one and only friend there is moving out, so I was going to take it. I went up last weekend to visit it, and it was ok, to be honest I wasn't thrilled, but it would do. So I filled out the application and faxed it in.

Then I came back home to MVP and a huge shit storm hit me involving shunning an ex girlfriend, a visit from my mother, getting laid, playing Dungeon and Dragons, and buying an ounce of kind bud, but not necessarily in that order, or rather not necessarily in order at all, transendent of simple sequentiality, a dense web of things that I have not yet fully disentangled... in short, I was not worrying about the apartment and its lease.

So finally today, the storm seemed to have passed. So I called the property management company to find out what was going on. I failed another French test, listening comprehension, and had to resort to what I think will become a good friend: je suis desolee que je ne peut pas parler votre langue. At least that was what I tried to say. And then they sent me over to the English speaking one, who explained that the apartment was already rented.

So I kind of freaked, at that point, quietly at least. The density of the previous weeks experience, I had plenty of reason to begin to doubt myself. I have been too lucky, taken it too lightly. The loss of the apartment, through my own negligence. And the inconvenience it will cause everyone.

Then for some reason, I remembered something I read in How to own the world, a spiritual guide that my roommate who is studying to become a ninja leaves in the toilet, by Steven K. Hayes:

"Examine all your choices.

If your days are filled with negative encounters, it is because somehow you have chosen to live around negative people.

If your days are filled with negative events, it is because somehow you have chosen to live in negative surroundings.

If your days are filled with negative actions, it is because somehow you have chosen to live with negative occupations.

If you do not take responsibility for the influences that shape your life, who will?

Make the choice to make a choice."

I'm not a ninja, but that last line resonated. Instead of being set back by this, I chose to take it as a lesson in mindfulness, and the inevitable consequences of its lack. Still we can only be mindful of so many things at once. So rather than condemn myself for the lack, I can simply choose to move on from here.