Thursday, March 31, 2005

|Little deaths hurt.|

A "petit mort" or "little death" is how the French describe post-orgasmic bliss. The other night I experimented with an attenuated tantric masturbation, tantric being the original aim and attenuated being the ultimate course. After five or six petits morts in about forty-five minutes, I was very contented.

And then shortly I felt a poking in my groin. And in my pelvis. And in my derriere. And the rest of the night I felt like I had a flu, only minus the cold/fever/head pains/stuffiness. My body just seemed to be in a state of perpetual ache. Not achey. Just one long ache.

I guess happiness comes at a price.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 22:38.
3 comments

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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

|Le DOS.|

Do you know what feature I miss most about DOS? Printing file lists. Remember how you could tell the computer to print a list of all of the files in a directory? God, I miss that feature so much it makes me twitch. Can you imagine how much my life would be made better if that technology hadn't been rendered unnecessary and ultimately weeded out by digital artificial selection? Just envision the possibilities. God what I could do! The possibilities are endless. Man alive! If only I could print my file lists!!!


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 20:15.
0 comments

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Monday, March 28, 2005

|Peckish, yet practical.|

I have not eaten since about 8.30 this morning. I'm ravenously hungry and there's nothing I want to eat in my dorm room. My incredible hunger, however, is tempered by the fact that I'm very poor. So, how do I satisfy both my stomach's growling and my wallet's moaning? I whip out the old calculator and figure out the square inch of pizza per dollar that I would be getting for each of the online deals at Campusfood.com. And I thought I'd never need geometry.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:32.
0 comments

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Sunday, March 27, 2005

|Brunch Review: iCi.|

Today, Michelle and I journeyed from the safe isle of Manhattan to the forgotten extention of King's County (a.k.a. Brooklyn), to brunch at Ici (French for "Here"), iCi according to the sign and the deftly-stocked business card.

I found iCi to be a fine brunch location selection. Kudos to Michelle and the New York Times. The decor was homey, yet not overly casual. It seemed to me to be a hybrid of what would be the guest house of a member of the First Estate for his younger clergy-man brother to stay in when visiting and Apt (yes, it's designed to be like someone's "apartment") in the West Village. Only instead of being in 17th century France, it's smack dab in 21st century New York. And instead of serving over-priced drinks which can be drunk on an "outside" "terrace" with floodlights that cast chain-smoking shadow puppets onto the walls, iCi serves more-than-decently priced challah French toast (should that be capitalized?) and vegetable frittatas with a back patio that was closed due to this reticent-to-depart winter season.

The balance to the good price was that I felt our server to be a little unwarm. Not a necessary condition, but it helps to feel like your server wants you there, right? As well, after she knocked coffee into the lap of a neighbor bruncher, I was a little jittery. My nervousness was not alleviated when she walked into the back of my chair, either. As far as I know, I made it out of iCi stain-free. Well, no stains caused by my waitress, at any rate.

All that aside, all I can say was that the French toast (seriously, should that be capitalized?) was thick, rich, not egg-y. The apple slices which topped it melted in my mouth. And I've had a bigger bill at a solo brunch.

Here? I'm there.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 22:26.
0 comments

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|Le Sigh.|

Remember Semisonic, "Closing Time" ? I just downloaded. And now I'm taken with this urge to hop into the car I sold some years ago, jump onto the HOV up to TJ (high school), but instead get off at the exit that will bring me passed the Starbucks. Get a venti somethingorother and drive to the TJ parking lot.

Who's up for chilling out in the pseudo-mathematical sculpture of which the name either escapes me or I never knew? Maybe lay down on the access road and bliss out?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 21:34.
0 comments

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Saturday, March 26, 2005

|An odd discovery.|

Go here: http://www.recherche.aol.fr
Then search for this: Israel Vibration Sounds Pressure Vol. 1

Take a gander at the search results.

Huh, right? I don't know. I just do not know.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:51.
0 comments

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|3 arguments, a museum, and a present.|

B brought me a present today just before we left to go see Le Grand Voyage at the MoMA. If you know how much I hate receiving presents (note: I love presents, just hate receiving them), then you can understand my intial concern when he let me know of his intentions on the phone. So what did he have in his hands (both hands) when he called me from the lobby to come downstairs? Orange Juice. Vitamin D + Calcium Enriched. 4-1/2 gallons. That's a good gift. A great gift. We share a similar passion for the beverage.

And then we went to the MoMA. The movie was sold out. So we toured it a bit, talked in French about Cubism and Chagal.

And then we had our first argument of the day. About why one should(n't) make haste in leaving a museum or a store when it's closed as opposed to meandering and taking one's sweet time (and the time of the employees of the establishment).

And then we had our second argument. About why one does(n't) reserve the right to assume certain privileges over service employees because one has spent this or that sum of money in this or that store.

And then we went to the Time Warner center and in Borders we had our third argument. About why one should(n't) read "Classics" instead of more contemporary literature.

And then I remembered that A once bought orange juice as a gift. My therapist will enjoy the coincidence.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:26.
0 comments

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Tuesday, March 22, 2005

|To the moon, Alice.|

Bang! Zoom! Right in the kisser!


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 00:40.
0 comments

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Monday, March 21, 2005

|Blind-sided by myopia.|

Still complaining about my fellow Columbians... they don't get Marx. They don't get Marx because they don't get wage-labour. They don't get wage-labour because they don't get the idea that someone would take a job simply because it pays $1/hr rather than $0.67/hr and not because it's what he wants to do with his life.

More than a few students in class today expresses this shock. I don't doubt that a few of them were near fainting, and this being the one day I forgot to bring my smelling salts. For the rest, to say that the idea that there are people who take a job because they have no other choice (or rather, the only other choice is starvation) was "mind-blowing" would be completely inaccurate. The idea did not even make a dent. At the end of the lecture, there was still one guy contending that it makes no sense why anyone would work a job for any reason other than wanting to, for any reason other than self-fulfillment.

If anyone's mind was blown today, it was mine.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:37.
0 comments

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|Tan is the new green.|

Well, not so much... Tan is "Spring Green." In other words, the visibly "ethnic" population of Columbia has sky rocketed because nearly everyone is now either tan from Costa Rica or Bermuda or wind-burned from Whistler or Park City.

And if you say to someone, "Oh, I didn't go anywhere for break," you'd be hard-pressed to wager which that person feels more as a response: pity or horror.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:32.
0 comments

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|Ahead of the train, but behind the ball.|

As of this moment, I am officially one week ahead of my two reading-heavy courses. With Organizations, I have only one tiny little Techno-Utopian Manifesto to read (did someone say red herring?) and I'll be good to start on next week's reading.

With Contemporary Civ (CC), I've gotten all of the Marx out of the way and the questions for it. Before I've even gotten to class I hope to have started reading Darwin. For CC, this puts me definitely one week ahead. But as I never read the Adam Smith that was assigned for the day before the midterm (for the obvious reasons), but not covered on the midterm, I am also technically one week behind.

Academic Debt vs. Academic Equity, to be sussed out during Reading Week. If I can stay a week ahead, then, essentially, I should have a 2 week-long Reading Week, which should give me more than enough time to pace through Adam Smith's Capitalism wet dream: The Wealth of Nations.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:37.
0 comments

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

|How's this for a story pitch to a publisher?|

"The story itself involves an edgy, high-strung 'unreliatble narrator' named Nathaniel, a sinister carpenter with a fondness for poking poeple's eyes out, and a beautiful young princess -- Olimpia -- who may or may not be a mechanical doll." -- Steve Johnson on E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Sand-Man."


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:54.
0 comments

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|Seeing red.|

Everything is black and white. You see a man, rough, gruff, probably Eastern European, lying in bed next to a woman. Only the dimmest light is infiltrating the somber bedroom. The man stirs, sits up in bed and slowly, almost agonizingly lurches his legs around and onto the floor. A voice comes over, a narrator, the man's inner-voice: "Gotta get up. Gotta go to work. Can't. Won't. Tired. Must. If I don't put the head on those pins, there are another 1000 bums who can replace me." During this inner monologue the man has managed to rise from the bed and has shuffled his way through his bare and sparsely decorated apartment. On the way to the kitchen he passes by a loom, it's old and covered in a ratty, holey linen. In the kitchen the light seems even more feable. The floor looks to be simply very well-trodden dirt rather than tile or some other kind of flooring. "Gotta get started. Can't be late. Need... need something. So tired." He reaches up and opens the door to a cabinet, light. He can barely see through the light, it blinds him, but he reaches for it and grabs a hold of something. His movements are noticeabley more lithe, faster and livelier. He pulls the object down and as it is withdrawn from it's dark place it fills the kitchen with light. The object is visible, it's in color.

A voice, not the man's: "For the labourer who just cannot seem to get going in the morning, try new Manifestios! Bite after bite puts a bounce in your step and a piston in your crank-arm. Crunchy and satisfying, be the guy at your union meeting that every man wants to pat on the back. Now in two new flavors: Stalin Red and Mao Berries."

The man smiles. Laughs a hearty, boisterous, drunk-Cosack after goosing a drunk bar maiden laugh. The scene freezes. A voice: "And for a nocturnal twist, try adding Mao Berries to our brand new Chiang Kai-Chex Mix to be the life of the party!"


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:34.
0 comments

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Friday, March 18, 2005

|That makes 2.|

I just realized, that makes 2 red herrings in a month. Perhaps these red herrings are red herrings. Perhaps this whole blog is one big red herring for Big Brother. Red herrings. Red herrings everywhere!

Like babies.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 22:07.
0 comments

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|The Power of Propaganda.|

I've been reading Marx for the past few days and have started now on the Communist Manifesto. I've read it before, like rings around a tree you can count the various colors of marker and pen that have scratched across the parchment of my well-worn Marx-Engels Reader (said in an Australian accent for as long as I can recall and yet have never been able to explain why).

Each time I read this pamphlet, I'm riveted. The blood in my veins begins to pulsate and my senses of moral righteousness and vindication surge like the anger of the Morningstar at the beginning of creation... Working Men of All Countries, Unite! indeed!!!

Marx, you silver-penned devil, no wonder so many fell to your impracticable program like sailors to the lure of the Sirens.

And then I begin to breathe easier. My body ceases to quiver. I remember that Communism is just a red herring.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 21:52.
0 comments

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|Speaking of Michelle Yeoh...|

What's she doing now? I mean, before I longed for Lucy Liu and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Yeoh filled the throne in my mind for Hot Ass Kicking Babe. Yes, Buffy came first, but she never really took her seat until the end. Madame Yeoh is, essentially, the Queen Mother, powerful but not active. And lost.

Where are you Michelle Yeoh???


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:04.
2 comments

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|Pop Rocks! Pretties|

This is a new section that I'd like to devote to the girls that I found to be the prettiest (other than the ones I went with, of course) at Pop Rocks!

Today's section goes out to two Asian (Korean?) girlies last night. They were in a gaggle (how offensive would it be to say "paddy") of Asians in the back (an oddity at Pop Rocks! to be sure). They both seemed very hip but not SoHo-in-Your-Face so. One reminded me of Michelle Yeoh and the other, even though she had a fiberglass cast on her right arm, was still able to twist and pop like no other.

Way to work it girls! ::snaps around the world::


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:57.
0 comments

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Thursday, March 17, 2005

|B Blues.|

B and I had our first relationship-type argument. Well, I think it was our first. I dunno.

To start from the start, this is Spring Break (recall the list of things to accomplish?). Early on in the break I received an email from B noting that we are planning on doing this and this over the break, and asking what else can we do? How else can we spend time together? Thinking this a good indicator of how things were going, I got on board for doing more things and planning such. Monday, we were to have lunch together. B ended up canceling on me at what was essentially the last minute which did end up throwing my work day off kilter re: when I have my snack vs. when I have lunch and when I do certain tasks that preclude lunch/snacking and take hours to complete. But, no big. He had to cancel because he has lots of work to do this week, applying to fellowships and the like. As I said, no big.

That night we get together and he makes me dinner -- very enjoyable. Then he tells me that he doesn't think he'll be able to go with me and friends to Pop Rocks! on Thursday night because he still has lots of applications to get through. That saddened me because then he would not get to meet my friends (something he's dodging for reasons that have been explained to me and which I find mostly acceptable), but not a big deal because mostly no one had even responded to my email about going in the first place and, again, I understand the need to get work done.

Then on Tuesday, we were talking, and he tells me that having so much work to do, he was wondering if we could shorten our Wednesday plans. My entire break has been spent working, at work and doing school reading -- Wednesday was going to be my Spring Break - we were going to go to the Met and then have lunch and then go to the Magnolia Bakery. So when he tells me that he wants to shorten my Spring Break to being, essentially, a quick jaunt to the Met in the middle of my day (leaving little time before or after to do anything worthwhile) I was a little bothered. We decided we'd figure it all out in the morning, before I went to work (I was going in for two hours in the morning for reasons that need not be explained here). Only, when I called in the morning B did not answer. Which was alright, considering that I'd come to the conclusion that I was going to uninvite him to my Spring Break as with the canceling of lunch on Monday and canceling dancing tonight, I'd started to get the feeling he was gunning to ruin my Spring Break. Anyway, I finally get ahold of him around noon (which is when we were originally planning to head out) and he's had a change of heart.


So, my break was back on track... or so it seemed.

Walking to the Met from Columbia (something I had never considered doing before) he's talking to me and telling me how he had gone to Splash the night before (Tuesday night) with a friend and about the fun he'd had and that he'd gotten in late (which is why he was too exhausted to hear/answer the phone in the morning).

Now, let's think about this. Monday, lunch, CANCELLED: too much work. Thursday, dancing, CANCELLED: too much work -- cancelled 3 days beforehand. Wednesday, outings with art and baked goods, NEARLY CANCELLED: too much work. Yet somehow in the midst of all of this too much work he found time to go out to a gaie dance club for a few hours, even though that was something he'd just told me a day prior that he was sure he would not have time to do even later in the week than THE VERY NEXT EVENING?

It hardly suffices to say that such news did not sit well with me. And I'd more or less stopped talking to him until we found ourselves in what must have been the Baroque Furniture Wing of the Met when I explained why I was bothered and why I did not want to kiss him.

To be absolutely clear: 1) I don't care that he went to a gaie bar 2) I don't care that he went to a gaie bar without me 3) I can understand that he might have realized that all work and no play makes B a dull boy BUT 4) I do care that he values his time so much more than mine that I can't get out of bed on Saturday morning to get started with my busy day when he wants to sleep in without annoying him but that he can cancel lunch at the last minute, cancel dancing too far in advance to be reasonable, and try to truncate our day together because he has so much work to do only to take time which he should have been using to sleep (so as not to miss our planned phone call in the morning) to do that which he'd said he would not have time to do with me and mine with someone else 5) I do find it frustrating that his words say casual but his actions say more than casual then his actions say very casual and then his words back up his latest actions!

His response was to say that he definitely cannot be expected to do things with me and only me all of the time. And I'm okay with that. In fact, I prefer that. But he was the one who wanted to spend more time together this week and after making changes to my plans I'm entitled to expect things to go as designed.

Ultimately B was apologetic and I felt much better having unburdened myself of those thoughts, but part of me feels as though he still didn't get my point.

So, the House is now open for bets...


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:53.
0 comments

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Friday, March 11, 2005

|The Date with B.|

Among my goals for Spring Break is to go on a date with B.

In my inexperienced opinion, a date should not include sex (or the lesbianized sex that B and I have been engaging in given our identical and therefore opposed sexual preferences). Sex can happen, and the best dates often involve it, but how do you know if you are going on the date to have sex or having sex because you went on a great date? It's a fine line, a blurry distinction, greys all over the place, but still...

If you are getting together merely as a prelude to sex, seeing a movie as something to do before hopping in the sack, then it's not a date. Similarly, going to brunch "the morning after" is also not a date.

By my definition, B and I have yet to go on a date. Consequently, we are not actually dating. As to what we are doing, your guess is as good as mine. I do know that I loathe unclarity (?), but I'm also sure that my drive to force clarification has often been not unlike throwing sand in the gears of a ferris wheel.

In any case, I am determined to go on a date with B sometime in the next nine days. Wish me luck.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:14.
0 comments

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|Spring Break.|

The SuperShuttles and Carmel Limousines have been circling campus like vultures for the past two days -- Spring Break (wahooooo!) has officially commenced.

And what am I doing? Keeping my nose to the grindstone, burning the midnight oil, checking out a museum or three, and maybe hitting up a yarn sale.

SB Goals:

1) Gym
2) Manhunt.net Marketing Exec. Interview (since they won't let me see the office) over Email
3) Research Asian-American History Paper
4) Read book on Contemporary French society and culture
5) Settle my Financial Aid
6) Gym
7) Research Law Schools and their respective application processes
8) Go on a DATE with B.
9) Check out the MoMA (since I do get in for free and all).
10) Gym
11) Super Sleepover (In)Sanity in Crack-ho, Brooklyn
12) Solo Brunch
13) Gym again
11) See Born into Brothels
12) Check out the new Whole Foods in Union Square
13) Bi-Level "which is almost only ever on one level" Game Night
14) "Thank You" notes to the Prof.'s who recommended me for Reid Hall
15) Finally add all of the music to my IPod that I have failed to put onto it since it was replaced
16) And, if I have time, see Quand la mer monte

Phwew. And at some point in there aren't I supposed to go on vacay?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:01.
0 comments

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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

|What if Nancy Drew and Party Girl had a baby?|

Today at work we got this shriveled older woman at work who was very upset. She is a deputy borrower for some professor or other and the library wouldn't let her take out the requested books for this reason or that. Anyway, seeing this woman... it was as if a Muse had condescended to bestow me with a gift...

McIvor: Deputy Borrower

But rather than being an old shriveled up spinster, she's a young plain-Jane sort who can become pretty (but never ravishing or hot) with the right help. She's studying at a very prestigious university, getting her Masters in Library Science, and paying her way as a research assistant for a Criminal Psychology professor who is also a well-published conspiracy theorist. This university is one of the nation's oldest, has a Skulls-like secret society, and many of the nation's, indeed the world's, captains of industry, leading politicians, and eccentric geniuses have come through its hallowed halls. While her professor is going off on all sorts of crazy which hunts as well as doing legitimate research on the criminal psyche, McIvor learns more and more herself about conspiracies and criminals. Each new red herring of the professor's leads her on a real adventure -- and being that so many of the university's alumni are prominent and worldly persons, turning any corner on campus leads her tumbling accidentally into a UAE Sheik's entourage or finds her overhearing the confidential murmurings of two Senators who are ardent defenders of the tobacco lobby.

McIvor, D.B.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 21:11.
0 comments

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Monday, March 07, 2005

|Proof-positive that I'm a New Yorker.|

Not that I feel like I constantly need to prove myself to anyone ::coughs::Josh::, but not only am I a New Yorker, but (please bear with my makeshift sociopolitical nomenclature for a second) of the Kingdom of Human Beings of the Phylum of the Occident of the Class of Americans of the Order of the Blue States of the Family of the East Coast of the Genus of New Yorker I am of that most coveted species: Manhattanite.

Today the weather attained a pre-Spring glory with clear skies, light breezes, and a temperature easily in the 50s. I was caught entirely unaware in my thick, ribbed merino sweater and puffy vest. By midday I had actually sweated off a ball. If you find it rolling around w121st and Amsterdam, you can keep it. It's touched the city. It's dead to me now.

In any case, can you guess my solution? To rush home and shower and change between classes, of course. Ahh, but what did I think was better to wear? A light, form-fitting black top and grey hacking slacks with power creases and black boots.

Simply put, my reflex to nice weather was dark clothing. Met-i Madison-i Manhattanite-i!


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 21:13.
1 comments

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|Never saw blue like that, except once.|

B wears a lot of blue. A lot. A lot. A lot. I have not asked, but I'm willing to bet a small sum of money (very small, as this really is not so great an issue) that blue is his favorite color. I have no problem with this. Blue is my favorite color as well.

Earlier today, in the shower, I was thinking about B's affinity for blue. And it occurred to me that he could almost be a Power Ranger. And then I thought, "I've said that before. But who? Who has so much of one color on all the time or is always around them? Mac? She could certainly be a Pink Power Ranger, but, no, not quite... Who, dammit, WHO?!" And then it hit me. If it were a snake, it would have bitten me.

A! I told A that he was a Power Ranger because, in addition to wearing a lot of blue (although not nearly as much as B), his whole room was done with blue in mind. The draperies, the candles, the carpet, the comforter, the paint, the painting he'd had commissioned of Mme Garland, etc. Now, I admit that I wanted a strong blue scheme to my room my freshman year of college, but I certainly did not carry it quite so far to its rational end as did A. The rationality of A's abode would have made Weber weep with joy.

B's place isn't quite so cooly colored, but the fact that I have yet to see him not wearing the color is definitely an able-bodied contender against A's domicile.

Maybe I should make them duel. A's wardrobe vs. B's wardrobe.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 20:56.
0 comments

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For a long time, it has bothered me that my readers cannot see the titles of my postings. If you recall from my jivejournal, I tried to make them all unique and relevant (relevance being a subjective term -- that is to say subject to my own mental contortions) and interesting. Not having the pressure of that here, I've gotten awfully lazy. But, more than that, I have had, I think, some great ones that you would most likely only see if you were commenting (as then it takes you to the page of the post itself and then you might happen to look at the address bar and see the title), but we know most none of you have ever even attempted such a feat

Well, that ends here and now.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 20:52.
0 comments

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Thursday, March 03, 2005

So as you can see from the previous post (although most of you will see this post before that post), I was selected for the Paris program. Looks like I'll be able to go, save for the fact that I most likely cannot fully afford it. If you know me, then you know my story. If you don't know me, then know that I am a fairly intelligent, good guy who's had a few rough starts and I'm finally, I think, on the right track. And I'd like your help.

It's kinda lame, it may be uncool, but every little bit helps, right? So, there's a button to the right. Feel free to click on it and help me out. You're more than welcome to give what you may or may not think is too little, because anything at all is better than nothing in the least.

If you don't want to, can't, or won't, that's cool. Chances are I wouldn't either. But if you do, can, or will, thank you.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:54.
0 comments

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"Dear SWS2.1:

I am happy to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the Columbia University at Reid Hall in Paris programs for Fall 2005. An official letter and information packet will be mailed to you in late March.

Congratulations!

FJ"


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:34.
0 comments

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005

So that thing that A ran into, well B just hit it hard and fast.

Frick.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 02:05.
0 comments

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|Septimus Warren Smith 2.1|

I went to an Ivy League undergrad.
I go to a top NYC law school.
I date men (well...).
I live in Bed-Stuy.
I don't need more to say,
just more room to say it.
Etc.

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