Change of heart

Alright, let's get some things straight here, buster,
First off, let's remember I call the shots.
I've got the winning hand,
ball's in my court,
and there are some things i have in mind,
oh boy do I have some things,
that I want to do.
Wanna touch the moon, for one,
Wanna marry myself a pretty southern belle,
one that drags out her, "Honeeeey"'s and "Darrrrrling's"
I wanna scale the highest peaks,
and have enough energy left over,
to swim in the deepest pools.
Are you hearing me? Are you getting all this?
I wanna be remembered forever,
Wanna sail all the seven seas,
and get to know all of their sunsets.
And that's just for starters.
* * *
Alright, alright, I'm sorry
can't we talk this over, again.
I realize I was brash, I was wrong, I was mean,
but I was young,
can't we come to a compromise?
No one has to know,
and, plus, I don't need so much now,
Just a few more years,
Is that too much?
After all, you never let me touch the moon,
or find myself that gorgeous southern belle,
or even sail one sea, much less all seven.
The sand's running out,
I haven't got the time to waste,
I'm beggin' you,
isn't there anything you'll give me?
Are you even listening?

Where my thoughts go

do I, do I,
say hi?
too late, he's already talking.
What's for lunch today?
Is it tuna? Or roast beef?
Which reminds me,
Did I get mom a gift?
I'll have to check about that.
What's he talking about?
Just nod and say, "Yeah."
"Yup.", "Uh-huh."
Ok, now I'm sounding too interested.
Time to tone it down a notch.
Fight the urge to yawn,
Damn it, fight.
Oh crap, just make it a quick yawn, then.
Give another round of "yeah-yeah"'s
Now how can that be?
I've looked at my watch five times
and it's only been ten seconds.
So tuna or roast beef?
Oh wait, it's Wednesday. It's taco salad!!
Ok, stop smiling now, focus...focus, damn it.
Oh this is just too hard.
I wonder if Liz is in her office.
Wonder what she's wearing.
Oh....he's stopped talking.
Did he just ask me a question?
Should I, Should I,
just say goodbye?

Train Howl

As I listen to the lonely howl of the night train,
its echoes hungry and beckoning for attention,
I can't help but think of my days past,
thoughts of how they never were just right,
or how they just never were enough,
It's another night I waste contemplating,
another day I've let slip through my hands,
Leaving me like the distant train's mournful song.

Wrap these quotes around your noggin

"All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy"
-Henry David Thoreau

"A day without goals is like a day without sun"
-Alfredo DiStefano (the greatest soccer player to never play in the World Cup)

"The experience is there, the reality is there, but how to get at it? Everything I type turns into a lie simply because it is not the truth."
-Joyce Carol Oates

"Once, when a GI was visiting Pablo Picasso during the liberation of France, he said that he could not understand the artist’s paintings: “Why do you paint a person looking from the side and from the front at the same time?” Picasso asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?” “Yes,” replied the soldier. “Do you have a picture of her?” The soldier pulled from his wallet a photograph of the girl. Picasso looked at it in mock astonishment and asked, “Is she so small?”"
-Richard Kehl

A Dream within a Dream

by Edgar Allen Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Men

by Ivan Saldarriaga

What makes up a man?

Is it his stern resolve?

That chiseled-feature attitude we ascribe to our super heroes?

“Gee Mister, doesn’t that hurt, the bullet went through your arm?”

“It’s merely a flesh wound, kid, I can’t even feel it.”

That cold, calculating business demeanor?

“Don’t you feel any remorse in sending ‘em boys out to die, General?”

“No, dammit. We’re in the middle of a god damn war.”

Or is it that sophisticated, debonair aura?

“Got a light?”

“For you, darling, I’ve got a lot more than just a light.”

Do our men ever get a break from their routine?

Can our super heroes ever say,

“Shit, the pain’s unbearable!”

Can our leaders ever say,

“I don’t want to send them. I can’t send another one. Just can’t. I mean, I just can’t”

Does our suave gentleman ever get to say:

“Uh…uh…you sure do...um…look nice tonight…uh, ma’am.”

And if they ever do, what do they lose? Do we still consider them men? Would we even want to be like them anymore?

Just what makes up a man anyway?

Children's Thoughts

by Ivan Saldarriaga

“Hey, are you awake?”

“No,” Johnny responded from his bed.

“I got a question.”

“I’m sleepin’,” he said, hoping this would discourage her from starting a conversation.

“Do you ever think about dying?”

After a long, quiet pause, Johnny roused himself to his elbows, and blindly blinked across the dark room to his sister and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you ever think about death? Like when will mommy and daddy die, or what will happen when we die?”

Johnny tried to see at least her outline on her bed, but his eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness. He groggily asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind, you’re too young to understand. I’m sorry, go back to sleep.”

“Now wait a minute. You woke me up, remember? Now, what are you talking about? Tell me…And I’m not…‘too young’. I’m almost eleven years old, y’know.”

“Well…It’s just that, lately, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Like…uh…what do you think happens when-we die?”

“Oh geez, Jan, I don’t know, I guess we go to heaven.”

“But how do you know? I mean, what if…what if nothing happens? Like…what if we just die and don’t go anywhere?”

Turning over onto his back, Johnny looked up at the ceiling. He could now see a bit more clearly around the room and was casually observing the outside traffic’s lights play on the walls. “Like, we don’t go to heaven or anything?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t that scare you? Not knowing? After we die, there’s nothing more of us, nothing continues. Or what if mommy or daddy dies? Then…then the people we’ve loved all our lives would disappear forever. You really don’t think about this stuff?” Johnny could start to hear her sniffing, trying to hold back tears. As of late, he’s caught her crying because of things that he just could not understand. All he knew was that he wished he could comfort her, tell her things to make her stop crying, but it was beyond him to know where to begin.

He lay silently in bed, overwhelmed by the expression of emotion from his older sister and realizing how he had never really thought about death before. He tried to console her best he could by saying, “Yeah, Jan, I do. It’s just that I know we go to heaven. It’s just like they say in church. When we die, we’ll all meet up in heaven…It’s going to be ok, Jan, it really is.” He knew, even as he said it, that it sounded hollow, almost insincere. He just didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m sorry, Johnny, I shouldn’t have woke you up. Go back to sleep now, okay buddy?” Johnny could hear her rolling over to her side away from him, letting him know that the conversation was over.

He too rolled over on his side, and then said, “Alright, Jan, have a g’night…I love you.” After a bit, he could hear her trying to stifle her tears with her pillow. Johnny began to realize, for the first time in his life, just how powerful the notion of death can be, and how fragile we can become when we face it. He began to think of what other things in the world-this immense, mysterious world-could cause us so much fear and sadness. It wasn’t so much a conscious thought as much as a quick and momentary sense of uneasiness. Before long, however, he was peacefully adrift in his own dreams, smiling with his own thoughts.

A freakin Penny for your Thoughts

As of late, things have been losing their original luster. Things that once came naturally have started to slip through my hands like fine sand. Skills and knowledge that I uniquely possessed and mastered have begun to dwindle, slowly blurring into obscurity. Take the other day for example, (I have two examples, so don't get so antsy, just settle down and enjoy them) in my math class, the professor was talking about a theorem, specifically the divergence theorem in multivariate calculus. He then asked us what this was like in first semester calculus. It was only after much prodding and guidance that i realized what it resembled, and I weakly offered, "Oh, it's like the fundamental theorem of calculus."

"No, not LIKE. Try is. People, this is the fundamental theorem of calculus."

And what's important here in this example isn't the fact that it was fundamental or trivial or what the hell ever theorem. the thing that struck me was, without his patient spoon feeding, I would have never remembered that it was the fundamental theorem of calculus. What does that mean? What do i care?

Well the truth is, i consider myself a math major in college, I might even go further to say that i at times consider myself a true mathematician. But the truth is, there's so much of the fundamentals that I've forgotten that I'm having trouble coping with the fact that I can still consider myself a true mathematician. What am I after all these semesters of math? Am i gaining the knowledge which ideally a math major should know? If the answer is no, then what the hell have i been doing these past four years? If the answer is yes, then what kind of shabby mathematician am I becoming? definitely not one that I'd trust with basic arithmetic, that's for sure.

Now I know what a common response would be, oh it's not the actual classes or material that matter in college, it's the learning process that truly matters. Or the methods we pick up. Or the habits we form as mathematicians through our classes. Or it's the way we learn to approach problems. And what do i say to this? Fine, if you're trying to sheepishly defend the validity of your major. But, is it truly fine? If we take courses, and forget the material as soon as we step out of finals, then...my God, what's the point?

My other example deals with the fact that I consider myself a racquetball aficionado. Now, several issues have been burdening my mind as of late. One deals with the fact that I've been playing-put bluntly-pretty crappily compared to my former standards. For me at least, I need a lot of consistency in playing in order to remain at a decent competitive level. And this seriously irks me like you cannot imagine. You're probably thinking, but it's a sport Ivan, it's going to require a lot of practice in order to be pretty good. And I whole heartedly agree with you, I just have one question, WHY? It's not with sports either, it's just like my former example with math, consistency is seriously the benchmark for remaining decent in something. But why, dammit. Why can't we have at least one thing, just one, where we're good at, regardless of age, or how often we do it? Is time seriously that much of a freaking thief that it takes from us not only our good experiences but also our very limited and very few skills?

It just seems too much of an investment, and not for enough incentive. Even if i were to dedicate five days a week exclusively to math or racquetball, just how good am I going to get? Best among my friends, best in the state, best in the world? Just how good is good enough? The truth is, there never is a good enough. It doesn't matter how much time we put into it. Where's the satisfaction? That's my other issue, just where does satisfaction lie? I can't seem to find it sometimes, it's as ambiguous to me as the divergence theorem was to me a few days ago.

So where does this leave me? A life of unsatisfied passions and interests? To be honest i don't know. Just what am I wanting out of the games I play or the classes i go to or the books I read? Contentment? Perhaps, it's something simple that I'm overlooking, something as subtle and discreet as the last phrase i heard as I left the racquetball courts tonight:

"Hey, good game, Ivan. Take care."

Worst Last thoughts before kickin the Bucket

1. "What's the name of that song, it's on the tip of my tongue..."

2. "Dammit, he's right."

3. "Hmmm...I don't think that's poisonous."

4. "I should tell her I love her before it's too late."

5. "Not again!"

6. "C'mon, what's the worst that could happen?"

Here's to being Perpetually Astonished

"It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry — or laugh."
-Kurt Vonnegut

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
-Kurt Vonnegut

Worship
by Kurt Vonnegut

I don't know about you,
but I practice a disorganized religion.
I belong to an unholy disorder.
We call ourselves,
"Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment."
You may have seen us praying
for love
on sidewalks outside the better
eating establishments
in all kinds of weather.
Blow us a kiss
upon arriving or departing,
and we will climax
simultaneously.
It can be quite a scene,
especially if it is raining
cats and dogs