People, politics, civilizations, poems, philosophies POOF! They came and went like will-o-wisps. Like Jude, he began to feel obscure. Outdated and outmoded in a society of quickly rising, fast burning stars. Throw-away beauties and throw-away politics, and throw-away philosophy. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. But, that’s never how it went, not in the world according to Thomas. Hell, not in the world according to anybody. There was never reduction. Only production, and not even by the people who promoted the whole thing. It was shipped off, shipped out. Made cheaper, Made in China ®. Leaden toys, oil spills. Produce. Produce. Produce. It wasn’t a triangle, just a line. No starting, no stopping. Then what?

Then he’d move on. POOF! Another throw-away thought, another throw-away philosophy. It isn’t quite cynicism, though, he imagined. No, the cynics just say everything sucks. And it doesn’t all suck. There’s just no changing anything. Some new bills here, a new president there, but it’s all really the same. It’s not cynicism, but helplessness. Confusion. POOF! Another freedom gone, another Facebook private message made public. Another judge taking kickbacks for imprisoning children. His friends and coworkers branded him with a big scarlet A. Not that “A.” That one was for adultery, which had become another throw-away philosophy, another throw-away marriage, another throw-away wife POOF! No, this “A” was for apathy. But that wasn’t quite it either. The world according to Thomas had problems! The apathetic don’t admit to problems, why bother? No, not apathy. Something else. Then what?

Then he’d move on. POOF! Another throw-away debate. Another throw-away hung parliament. Another throw-away pundit. Pundits sure aren’t very punny. Another throw-away joke. The problem in the world according to Thomas was that people thought too much. Well, sort of. People thought about which angle would be best for Facebook and which friends could see what, and OH MY GOD, did you see what happened to Tiger Woods? Another throw-away news story. Another throw-away anchor. Take a swim with Edna, take a deep breath. Then what?

Then he’d move on. POOF! See, the will-o-wisps weren’t always so bad, just sometimes there were more, sometimes less. It’s their way, he supposed. Some of them true, some of them not. Everybody had them, he figured. Figured that’s what made him human. Somewhere deep, he felt it all would work out someway or other. Maybe never be the same as it used to be, but figured that’s okay too. The world according to Thomas had changed quite a bit as his memories flashed in and out of existence. Figured it always had. Always wood. Then POOF! He’d move on. Another throw-away blog. Another throw-away idea. Another throw-away story. POOF! There goes the world according to Thomas.

By gavatron, click for Flickr Photostream

The way we often view poverty is represented almost perfectly by the photograph above. It’s there, and we’re standing off, just watching it. We see it, and we move along. The man on the corner, making his cardboard plea for work or money or booze. The man sitting on the street, too tired to even ask, but with a tattered cup or swiss-cheese hat sitting there, screaming silently, “Please. Spare a dime, quarter, nickle. Anything.”

But what happens whenever it’s not just on the street, where you can pass by without thinking twice about it. Tonight, my wife and I decided to go out to the local installment of a major Tex-Mex restaurant chain for dinner. This restaurant is only a few minutes from our house, and when we eat out, it’s a frequent choice. Tonight, though, was a little different than most. Shortly after we were seated and received our never-ending bowl of chips and bowls of salsa, a man walked in who immediately drew gazes from every table there. He was seated nearby.

While no book should ever be judged by its cover, I will admit that I immediately made my assumptions about this camouflage clad, greasy-haired, clearly weathered hardback which sat nervously at the table. He fidgeted in his pockets, stood up and looked around every few minutes, and it seemed he felt as out of place as he looked. He ordered a glass of water, and began perusing the menu. As his eyes flitted across the brightly colored pages, I could see there were two distinct, radically different, reactions. My best guess is the first was a result of reading the item descriptions. It was pure ecstasy. The second was a result of seeing the prices. It was utter disappointment.

His roller coaster facial expressions weren’t, however, my first indication that this man would likely be going without dinner tonight. As soon as he was seated, he removed his coat, by pulling out his arms and letting it drop to the floor. He looked around to make sure no one who worked there was watching him, and he carefully slid the knife out of its paper napkin sheath. The drawstrings of the top of the coat had become knotted together, so it couldn’t be opened properly. He used the knife as a surgeon might, carefully trying to undo the knot without breaking either of the precious cotton-cord tendons. In the end, he just sawed through it, both because he was unable to break the knot, but also because the wait staff was beginning its parade. In a gesture which made clear his inability to pay for a meal, he carefully resheathed the knife, so the bundle looked as undisturbed as he could make it.

It was clear the wait staff was unsure how to handle the situation. There was a steady stream of aprons walking past his table, saying hello and asking if they could get him anything. He talked with any of them who would listen. I could only hear bits and pieces over the din of the restaurant, but I heard enough. He didn’t have much money. His mother recently died. How much just for a taco? In the midst of all this, he nervously nibbled at the basket of chips and salsa brought to him, and the look on his face said he was just waiting for someone to ask him to leave.

The manager walked by and said hello to the man. Her grey pantsuit sharply contrasted his black hoody beneath black shirt beneath newly-sutured camouflage. That was the end of his warmth, his meager meal, and his water, I thought. I felt sorry for him. While the low 40s may not be cold to some, for anyone around Texas it certainly is. For anyone who spends all day every day outside it is. She smiled and kept walking, then something amazing happened.

Another couple sat at the table just behind ours. Apparently, the man sitting there was just as nosy as I was. he got up, and got the manager. They were close enough to our table I could hear what he was saying. “Excuse me, miss. That man there at the end of the row. I want you to give him whatever he wants for dinner and put it on my bill.” The manager looked shocked. “That’s very, err, cool of you. Where are you sitting?” The man motioned to his table, they separated.

The parade of wait staff hadn’t ended, and one waiter was talking prices with the man, who was clearly on the verge of tears. The waiter told him he could get him just a taco, but it would be 4.95. The man pulled a fistfull of change and began counting it on the table. Both of them realized it wouldn’t be enough, and the man hung his head while the waiter said, let me just go check on something. Near the back, the manager had gathered the wait staff, spoke with them briefly, and they all went back to their sections, casting knowing glances at each other as they went. Shortly, our waiter went to the man’s table, and asked him what he’d like to eat. The man, clearly ashamed, admitted he couldn’t afford it, but the waiter told him not to worry about it, it had been taken care of. Anything there on the menu he could have.

Even in the soft light of the restaurant, the tear that began running down the man’s cheek was unmistakable. He ordered, and, like a child, asked if it would be okay if he got a coke, too. The waiter gave a jovial laugh and told him sure.

I kept an eye on the man throughout the rest of our meal, and I couldn’t quite place the emotion I saw on his face. It wasn’t exactly happiness; it was more akin to that deep joy you feel. Not the giddy pleasure, but that overwhelming feeling you get when everything finally seems like it’s on your side. The couple who offered to pay also had their left-overs boxed up and given to the man. They also made a deal with the waiter, that while they didn’t have cash, they’d make an extra-large tip if he could give the man some money on his way out. They just had one request. They wanted to know the man’s name.

The waiter was more than happy to oblige, and he went and sat down across from the man. They talked for several minutes, and he told how he had spent 8 years in prison, but he’s out now and has put away that lifestyle. He talked about how his mother recently died, after he’d been taking care of her. The waiter went to get him some more coke and make his rounds. He stopped at the other couple’s table, told them the man’s name was Doug.

Doug got the best meal he probably had in days. He was able to come in from the cold for a while, and he even got what was to him a delicacy, a coke. What a sight. I’m young, but I’ve managed to turn into quite the cynic, but despite all that, watching that couple give that man something he so obviously desired but couldn’t have got for himself made me realize a couple of things.

First, people aren’t just a complete loss. In these days of litigiousness and self-absorption, it was a refreshing to see someone who cared for another human being. Second, it showed me how even though I view a single meal at a restaurant as so insignificant, to someone, it’s a magic salve.

I didn’t see if the waiter actually passed on a portion of the tip like he said he would. Typically, I would be prone to believe he didn’t. But tonight? I’d be willing to bet he did.

We got up Friday, intending to go do our souvenir shopping, which I wasn’t too pumped about, but she wanted to do, so you know how it goes. We went out, grabbed a cab to Bryant Park, where we had some delicious food from a place called ‘Wichcraft, and ate in the park while it snowed. While this may sound romantic, it was more cold than anything else, so we quickly finished and headed on our way.

We got stopped by a guy selling tickets to a comedy club, and we figured since it was our last night, why the hell not. We got the tickets, and went on our way. Shopping was pretty uneventful, too. There’s lots of stuff, most of it just utter crap. Lots of stuff that costs too much. Just lots of stuff, period. We got her siblings some “I <3 NY” shirts, got her mom a spiffy Statue of Liberty shirt. Then we got some cool gifts.

We went to the giant M&M’s store in Times Square, where they’ve got nearly every color M&M you can imagine. My dad’s a Baylor alum, so we got him some dark green and gold M&Ms. We also got him a shirt that says “I need a bailout” since he’s been so outspokenly against them. Next, we crossed the street to the giant Hershey’s store. There, we got my mom a large hershey’s bar, with our picture on the wrapper. We also got a souvenir bucket filled with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for her dad.

Those were the gifts I liked getting, because they were more than just a T-shirt. They actually meant something. In any case, we had fun, spent too much money, and that was that.

Afterwards, we went to drop all the stuff off at the Hotel, where we proceeded to nap for a few hours, instead of just a few minutes as we’d planned. At that point, we still needed to run by the Gershwin theater to get Kreestone a Wicked hoodie, go eat at Mars 2112, and get ourselves to the comedy club. Well, the Gershwin wasn’t selling merchandise, and there was too long of a wait at Mars 2112, so we ended up eating at Cosi, which had some amazing sandwiches and pizza.

After that, it was off to the Broadway Comedy Club. We ended up being a few minutes early, so we had to wait a bit before being seated. We learned something then: If you do not want to be right up on the stage, where the comedians can, and will, pick on you, don’t get to the comedy club early. We were, literally, front and center. I could have reached out and touched the comedians.

We heard 4 comedians there. There was the emcee, who was pretty funny, and 3 “mainline” acts. Of the three, there really was only one who wasn’t funny. While there’s a good deal of room for crudity and whatnot in comedy, his was just over the top. Often, what makes something funny is that it’s right there on the line, often a little past. That’s why it’s funny. Neither something too far over, nor not close enough, is funny, and he fell into the former category.

I should mention that per the stipulations of the ticket, we had to purchase two drinks per person during the show. This is, undeniably, how they make their money, since admission for two people was only $20.00. The drinks were expensive, but believe-you-me, they weren’t watered down. No, no. Strong drinks, (mostly) good comedy, and front-row seats made for a great last hurrah in New York.

We got to bed, packed up, and the next morning we caught our flight home. Home. Here in Texas, things work a lot differently than they do in New York. First of all, you can get Dr. Pepper in every restaurant. This was not so there. In fact, we only found two. Secondly, you can go get a meal in Texas ridiculously cheaply. I mean, we stopped in for dinner on our drive from the airport, and we both got entrees (not something we did in NYC We split nearly every meal). For about half the cost of most of our meals in NYC, we had soda and two entrees. Now, really, what’s up with that?

In any event, it was a great trip, but we were glad to be home once we made it. I’ve only got one more NYC post, and it’s about the restaurants, so stay tuned!

We didn’t stay there long, not just because it was a little dark, but because, honestly, we didn’t get it. Her style was subtle, with hints of 6-year-old art project, and it finished with a bit of a vinegarish flavor.

We hopped an escalator to the next floor down, where we finally saw some stuff we liked! Cézzanne, Picaso, Van Gogh, and a few I’d not heard of before, like Henri Rousseau, Georges Braque, Yves Tanguy, and several others. (Again, I’ve got some great shots of these guys’ paintings, but I forgot my cable. I’ll post about them later) We were surrounded by cubism, impressionism, and all manners of Art modern. We finished perusing the floor and hopped down another one.

Now, I like Art, whether it be with words, pictures, movies, paint, sculpture, etc. I really do. But I think my definition of Art must be a little too narrow, or some painters are just a little too pretentious. For example. Barnett Newman is one of those painters who paints lines on a canvas. Just lines, vertical stripes. He calls these things fine art. The most pretentious, I think, was his painting called “The Wild” (Click the link, you can see it). If it’s unclear in the picture, the whole of the painting is a 1-inch by 6.5 foot strip of canvas painted red. Now, what on EARTH, could that do for anyone seeking truth, beauty, or the American way? I just don’t quite get it, I guess.

In any event, we wandered around, saw some neat stuff, saw some ridiculous stuff, and after we’d been there for about 4 hours, we decided to get some lunch and get some rest at the hotel. Well, we made a grave error in our lunch decision. Because we were so close to the hotel, we thought we’d just grab the lunch buffet at the restaurant here before we headed upstairs. Little did we know that by doing so, we were destined for a world of hurt. Or, at least, a world of ridiculously expensive lunches. We ate, it was delicious, then they brought us the receipt to sign to charge it to our room. $54 later, we were riding the elevator back to the room in shock and despair. It was rather unfortunate.

We got to the room, promptly fell alseep, and didn’t wake up until around 6. We went back out to times square, to see the things we hadn’t seen yet, and stopped in for dinner at what has now become my favorite place in New York City. The Stardust Diner. The wait staff takes turns serenading the patrons with show tunes, country, and myriad other genres. It was great fun. Oh, AND? Their chocolate shakes were just as good as Howard Johnson’s were before they closed, so that sealed the deal.

We walked around a bit more before packing it in for the evening. We’ve seen new things every day, and it’s been a lot of fun, but I’m realizing more and more every day that there’s so much more that we want to see that we won’t be able to. This city is just so big, there’s no way to see it all in a week, even if we didn’t take a nap in the middle of the day. Guess we’ll just have to come back sometime.

I don’t typically get very angry about things. Whenever I do, it rarely lasts very long. I can’t say that I’m really “over it” per se, but I have gotten past the initial knee-jerk reaction of the thing. Here, let me ruin a movie for you.

Seven Pounds is about a man who is out to help several people turn their disease-ridden lives around. His plan is to find people to whom he is a donor match, then he’s going to kill himself so those people can have his parts. What a hero! A man’s going to commit suicide, which is bad, terrible, no good. But wait! There’s more! He’s going to donate his parts to other people, so that’s okay. That’s right. Because none of us could find them before, Seven Pounds points out to us all the redemptive qualities of suicide.

Now, I realize that murder, violence, etc have been glorified in movies for years, but there just seems something different about treating suicide the same way. I mean, when do we get to see the redemptive qualities of child molestation or rape or elder abuse? I mean, those are all taboo, so they’re bound to be packed with oh so subtle redemptive qualities, right? Right?

Maybe suicide just hits me a little too close to home. I’ve been close. Too close. And whenever I see it being portrayed as something to strive for, something heroic, I guess I just get a little up in arms. I just fail to see how that message could be portrayed as heroic. Again: I understand my hypocrisy in my having no problems with the murder and violence being glorified, but there just seems to be something so different with suicide.

Thoughts?

Wow. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts. Their editors aren’t buying books.

She linked to this article over at Publisher’s Weekly. If you don’t want to read the article (Come on. It’s short.), the key line is “PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.”

I’m a big fan of books. I read a lot of them. I buy a lot more of them. Some day, I would like to write one or two. I’ve been watching the publication industry for a while, because I would like to get into it in some capacity, and I have never heard of a publisher putting an entire hold on buying books. Spokespeople at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are saying that the move isn’t indicative of anything too sinister, but how can it not? While I’m sure the publisher has a vast store of manuscripts it has purchased not (yet) published, but if a publisher stops buying books, it creates a stagnation in thought.

Think about it: no new books are coming in, so new books will stop going out, and while there are tons of books out there, and no one could ever read them all, publication of new and ever-improving ideas is a must for the development of culture, philosophy, or really any other facet of life. This move by Houghton Mifflin really has me concerned, even if it is being called a “temporary” situation. This is a dangerous precedent for them to have set.

Well, I’ve watched several series all the way through, and I’ve found several that I really like. Probably the best of them all has been Fullmetal Alchemist, but I’ve been watching through Deathnote recently, and I’ve got to say, It’s giving Fullmetal a run for its money.

I’ve watched all sorts of series, and something that I like about anime (and cartoons in general) is that the protagonists are typically young adults. They’re usually extremely smart (when you watch anything other than Dragon Ball or the like), talented, and respected. That last bit is what I like the most; the young adults are respected. Here in the states, most shows targeted at the 20-something’s crowd focus on the constant generational battles waged between the younger people and the older ones. In anime (the ones I’m fond of, anyways) aren’t focused on the difficulties, rather the things that each side can learn from the other. I think the latter is a far more useful point of view.

How about you all? What sorts of entertainment do you like, and why?

Grey

Monochromatic amidst the chiaroscuro haze of time
Memories lost, found, forgotten, repressed, fade into
The background—grey.

Standing wondering staring into nothing,
Stumbling on memories, looking from afar;
The colors faded—grey.

A lifetime of struggle and heartache she’s faced—
Disappointment, pain, sadness, fear—
But none of it mattering now—grey.

Emptiness and loneliness leaving her feeling
Small, helpless, forgotten.
Wanting to fill the void—grey.

Slashing violently through the grey,
Glowing green and growing,
A swathe of color begins to shine

The heartache of the past further obscured,
Further separated, further healed.
Light breaks, contrasts sharpen

She sees herself mirrored,
Magnified, reflected back. All the memories,
All the history, all the haziness of time torn away

The void takes shape; the shape begins to fill,
As her heart is mended, slowly, and as the scabs
Fall away, she looks again—grey.

Grey changing, bubbling, mottled now with
Points of light, bright and clear
Her background begins to disentwine,

And the colors become clear,
Darks and lights, neons and mutes,
What’s clear is it’s no longer—grey.

She is who she is, her past
The palate from which her canvas
Is carefully colored

The streak of green keeps growing,
Glowing verdant against the colors
eschewing from the grey beyond.

Her heart thaws, warms, beats,
A fire, viridescent flame, emerald passion
Envelops her, born for the growing green form

Her prayers answered, no longer alone,
She begins to take heart, she embraces
The virid figure taking shape,

Turning the girl from grey to white—
All color encompassing, infinite possibility—
And the void is filled,

The background vivid and colorful,
Imprinting their hues on the girl,
But she’s encompassed them all,

Not despairing, but sublimating,
Taking advantage of the lessons learned
Looking forward, entwining fingers

With her emerald companion,
The world takes form and color,
And washed away is the—grey.

We’ll start with what’s gone down that will be forever indelible.

I got a tattoo this past Wednesday night, after several years of consideration on the subject. I’ve had this design in mind for several years, with some minor modifications along the way. The central symbol is the Green Lantern’s. On the top and bottom are the first two lines from the Green Lantern Code (as done by Hal Jordan) with a small modification to avoid having to put punctuation in there, which would have looked silly.

The Green Lantern has long been my hero. He’s a super hero of a different sort, you see. Rather than garnering his power from radiation or being an alien, his power comes from a ring he was given. That ring allows him to bring his imagination to life. As a result, rather than being a super hero of strength or speed, he’s a super hero of intelligence, wit, and cunning. His only limitations are his intelligence and his imagination, and I’d like to see myself in that same light.

I’m a very mentally-based person. I take pride in my mental faculties (even if I sometimes don’t think they’re up to par), and whenever I come at a problem, I don’t go for trial and error so much as I reason through it, and I try to come up with creative solutions to problems. I would like to imagine myself as being able to do anything that I set my mind to, and the only thing that can stop me is if I stop thinking, imagining. Yeah, I know it might be geeky, but I’m geeky, and it means a lot to me. So there. Also, the story of getting the tattoo is pretty funny, but I’ll tell that in another entry.

The other major happening was hearing back from the people on my application to go to Oxford from January to April. After being entirely unproductive at work because I was pacing around waiting for them to contact me to say yea or nay. Around two that afternoon, I finally got an email.

Dear Tyler,

Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a participant in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities’ The Scholars’ Semester in Oxford (SSO) for the Spring 2009 semester (09 January – 18 April, 2009). You will be joining a talented and exciting group of fellow Christian university students on what I hope will be a life-changing journey.

So. There it is. I’ve been accepted! I’ll be going to Oxford! There’s a lot to do between now and then, but goodness me. It’s going to be a heck of a trip. I’m not looking forward to being away from my girlfriend for that long, but she’s being very supportive of my going, and we’ll work through it, hard as it’s going to be.

I don’t really have anything else to say about the trip as of now, because there’s so much information that I still have to receive from them regarding details, but rest assured that I’ll post more whenever I know more. I’ve created a new category, Oxford 2009, so you can easily keep track of anything Oxford related.

Well, now I’m back (from out space), and I’ll be posting more frequently again.

Right at the end of the semester, from a combination of 4 months of not sleeping, a massive amount of work coming down on my head, and my ever-recurring chemical imbalance, I ran into some pretty severe depression, which culminated in my taking some actions I really ought not have. I’m not really going to go into detail, but suffice it to say it scared me and some people around me enough to convince me to go see a doctor again to get back on anti-depressants.

I’ve been on anti-depressants in the past, and I’ve never really liked them. As much as I know it to be false, I can never quite shake the feeling that by getting on anti-depressants I’m making an admission that I’m not strong enough, that I’ve got something wrong with me, that I’m a failure. However, this time, I knew I needed to do something, so here I am, back on anti-depressants.

In the past, the medication has had all manners of strange side-effects, which led me to stop taking them. This time, I’m on Cymbalta, and it seems to be working really well. For the first week or two, the medicine made me pretty sick to my stomach; however, they said that was fairly common and it’d go away. It did. Since then, I haven’t really had any side effects. The other medications put me into a fog, where I couldn’t think clearly or quickly, and I lost any sense of creative drive, but Cymbalta hasn’t done that. It’s equalized my mood without making me feel artificially giddy and without killing my ability to think.

I think this is a good thing: the medication is working like it’s supposed to, and I’m feeling better. Hopefully, that’ll help me with this whole blogging thing; when I’m depressed, I don’t really want to do much of anything, but now that I’m feeling better, I get the gumption up to do some writing every now and then.

I just hope I still have some readers.