David Foster Wallace

“There is something painful about being stuck in a body, in a consciousness, that can’t ever, except through conversation, be inside someone else’s.”

Before he ever moved to Gotham City, before he grew into the overweight, obsessive sad sack of his later years, the Penguin was a poet and a dandy who lived in London. He wrote complex villanelles and threw lavish dinner parties at which he only became more charming the more he drank. He wore a monocle, a top hat and carried an umbrella

One evening, at one of his dinner parties after hours spent sipping absinthe, the Penguin ran up to the roof of his building, opened up his large, black umbrella and leaped off into the air. As he coasted to the ground, he hollered out lines from Blake, stuff about grabbing life by the fat of its stomach and giving it a twist. He was that crazy. He was that bursting with life.
From that night on he made it his habit to jump off roofs ever higher while clutching an umbrella. After a while he got pretty good at it too. He saw that by kicking his legs and twisting his back a certain way, he could actually prolong his flight, coasting all over the place, sometimes only landing after several daring minutes aloft.

It came to pass that the Penguin started hearing more and more about a certain nanny named Mary Poppins. She too, he was told, had been floating around London hanging from an umbrella handle. Everywhere he went, the Penguin kept hearing about her, how it was simply insane that they had not met each other yet. So finally a dinner party was arranged by someone who knew them both, and on the evening of the party, the Penguin walked into the drawing room, saw Mary Poppins on the divan, doffed his top hat and bowed low, as was his style in those days.

He had planned a few things to say and do when first meeting Mary Poppins. He thought he might lift up his umbrella as though challenging her to a dual. He imagined she would smile and take up her own frilly, perhaps pink umbrella. And then together they would dance about the room, leaping over furniture, parrying and thrusting, perhaps even winding things up breathing heavily nose to nose.

Instead what happened was the Penguin became very shy and quiet. As he stood there staring at her, his top hat felt needlessly clumsy, his monocle too small for his face, and the squinting needed to keep it in place was giving him a slight headache. For the first time in his life, the Penguin felt ludicrous.

“I imagine you two must have an infinite amount of things to speak of,” said their host as he sat them together at the dinner table. The Penguin nodded uncertainly. After three or four minutes, it became clear that the Penguin and Mary Poppins had absolutely nothing to say to one another that did not deal exclusively with umbrella travel— getting stuck in trees, the shoulder aches, anxiety about tipping over in the wind.

Everyone at the table just sat there staring at them expectantly, which made the whole thing even more awkward. Trying to move things along, Mary Poppins asked the Penguin if he liked to sing, to which the Penguin responded, “Only when I’m drunk.” Then she asked if he enjoyed children, to which he replied, “Yes, in a sweet wine sauce.” The Penguin then asked Mary Poppins how she kept people from looking up her skirt when she flew. She smiled politely, then turned to the man on her left and asked him how he was enjoying the lamb.
The man on her left was wearing an elegant, aristocratic cape. Mary, a bit drunk on the sherry, noted that if he spread his cape out, he might be able to glide about like a bat. The man on her left chuckled and suggested that after dinner they head up to the roof and give it a try, which they did.

— Jonathan Goldstein

PICTURE JOURNAL: SUMMER 2011

Days are getting shorter and September is already here. This means re-capping summer in pictures.

j u n e

Otto's fruity cocktails for Carm's birthday.

 MCAT preparation, sleepless nights & two delirious girls.
Tatiana: "Facundo, stop eating out of the trash!"

j u l y

Our glorious science wall curated by Yacki and Tatiana.

In the middle of butt fuck Maryland.

 Sitting by the pool after being told I couldn't take my MCAT.

Not to sound too melodramatic, but this was one of of the worst days of my life.

To cheer me up after the MCAT debacle, Chris took me to see the Blue Man Group.

First night in Europe. 

Julie's destroyer. Ha, jay kay, Julie.

Venice. Me sneaking up on Julie, asking her "Wanna get gelato?"

 Lunch at a cafe in Venice.

Walking and partying around Rome ruins.
"I have a proposal, let's uh..."

Last night in Florence at a nearby park.

French Riviera.


Barcelona has strange street performers.

 Madrid at night. Last night in Europe.

a u g u s t

When will I ever learn that Williamsburg rooftop parties suck?

Doing a poor job at rowing in Central Park.

Brooklyn Brewery.

Asian flushing at Sunswick with my sister.

Irritating the boys by forcing them to take pictures with us at Heather's bar.

 Priceless: the morning after Aileen died at Happy Ending.

Yellow Ostrich show at Glasslands & discovering the photo booth.

 Upstate, NY: when Carmen met Bentley.

MISSING SCHOOL -__-

g e n e  

r e g u l a t i o n.

It's the first time in eighteen years that I won't be returning to school this fall (I just graduated from a master's program and am going through a quarter life career crisis at the moment), and I'm already feeling restless. Last night, one of my friend's friends spoke to me about his research with p97 and I got really excited.

I MISS ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS,
I miss learning about aspects of molecular biology that I am not familiar with,
I miss my independent study and spending countless hours discussing a mutation with my saucy Genetics professor.

My December in pictures:

 Completed my second to last semester of graduate school.

 Flew into Orlando on the 17th.

 Went Alligator watching (but didn't come across any) on some swamp.

Tried (a tiny piece of) alligator meat, which made me feel awful.

It also wasn't very appetizing. Also tried hush puppies (on the right), 

which is what a heart attack tastes like, I guess.

 Experienced my first warm, sunny day in December

with these two girlies.

Helped Carmen pack her things up and say good bye to Cape Canaveral.

 Road tripped from Florida to New York.

Hosted Darlene's 23rd birthday dinner 

and baked her a donut shaped cake.

Procrastination!

Sweet baby Jesus, I've been so lazy all day and haven't worked on my neuroscience papers at all and have to work every day up until I leave to Florida on Friday. Nice run on sentence, Yacki. Whatever.

I've been treating myself to a few things this past week:

 A new coat that makes me look like an eskimo and a pretty ring, 

both from Forever 21. Don't mind the make up from last night, ha.

 My winter break reading material -- it's about the lady

from which we get the HeLa cell line.

SO EXCITED TO READ IT!

 My winter break homework. Must get through this book,

so that I'm a good cardiology research associate.

 Winter break homework part two. Must learn how to read

ECGs so that I am a good cardiology clinical coordinator.

New open toed boots from DSW. On sale for $35!

I know, I know...open toed boots are pretty 

stupid, but I think they look good.

Lucy, the squirrel.

My mom has been feeding "Lucy" for the past two months or so, and today she was chilling at my kitchen window, waiting for me to feed her:

Old things.

Rummaging through a box of old stuff to find a lighter, I came across:

 an old six page love letter written to me with an impressive

second page delineating the function of the heart

a little index card ("zoo card") aileen left on my desk

almost five years ago

Thrift store findings.

 

Jacket - $9.

Moleskin side view - $0.69

First page of the moleskin (which is what drove me to purchase it)

This is a good one:

via PostSecret

My first business meeting.

My first business meeting took place November 11-12. There was this communications expert, who lectured on the four essentials to establishing an excellent partnership (he spoke in the context of health care provider with patient, but it can be applied to any relationship, really):

• Status - give the right sort of praise to elevate someone's status. It gives them a sense of validation.
• Autonomy - always give whoever you're with an option -- avoid mandating things or else you're seen as an authoritative figure more so than someone they are on the same level with.
• Certainty - be confident in what you say and how you behave. This will reassure people.
• Relatedness - empathize. Make the person feel like you understand them.

Apparently, it's all about increasing the person's dopamine levels such that they'll return to you because you make them happy. That last point (i.e. relatedness) also has to do with oxytocin (the hormone related to bonding).

The rest of the meeting dealt more specifically with the research I'm involved in and would not be of interest to anyone besides a study coordinator, so I'll end it here.

BLAHlal, the slumlord.

15. watch out

 26 things: november 2010

 watch out, Bilal is a dirty slum lord when it comes to Monopoly.

I should be studying.

Maria tweeting about French boys and the Teenagers randomly playing my Hypem shuffle inspired this blast from the past,

FAST FORWARD TO 1:18


Hey Aileen, remember that time we jumped on stage and the lead singer made me sing the girl's part and I, being terrible with lyrics, started rapping nonsense (with your assistance)?

Oh, nostalgia.

& then we shuffled our way towards the backstage area and I told you guys to pose!:

summer, i already miss you.

from left to right:

valerie, me, jeanie.

no one has the same synapses

from greenpoint to long island city

 

 september 17, 2010. 11 am.

on my way home from greenpoint, i sat at a bench in the court house square park and marveled at the enormity of this building and the post tornado sky.