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Category Archives: Personal

onions as they relate to life

In The Onion this week an editorial which seems to sum up something profound about the human condition. A statement about Free Will, perhaps, though you don’t look in the mood for a detailed analysis right now.

In Hero, the 1992 Dustin Hoffman movie (not to be confused with Ying Xiong, which had very little Hoffman in it, just the one cameo where his nose is sliced off by “Flying Snow”, a scene that was cut and can only be found in the DVD special features), Dustin Hoffman’s character (it was Hoffman, right?) explains to his 12 year old son about life: (paraphrasing) “Life is like an onion, layer after layer of bullshit. You keep peeling away layers of bullshit only to find more layers underneath. So you find a layer of bullshit you can live with, and thats where you stop.”

In Hawaii (perhaps also Vidalia, Georgia and Walla Walla, Washington) the Maui sweet onions are planted by placing the seed practically on top of the soil, so that the onion, instead of growing in an elongated fashion down into the earth, spreads out into a wide fat bulb. Consider this when you find your ideas recieved by shallow people, perhaps depth is not everything.

Lastly, a culinary note: they don’t make you cry as much if you use a very sharp knife, and get it wet first.

Posted 19 April 2006 § ‡ Comments (0)

a related note

An odd thing happened to me today.

After electronics lab, I went to get some coffee at the little cafe in the new engineering building on campus. As I was standing in line, a girl came up to me, and asked if this was the line. I said yes, unfortunately, and being lunch time, there was a bit of a rush. She said she just needed some coffee, and I agreed that this was a an important goal.

She was a pretty girl, freshman-ish, almost completely forgettable, interchangeable with 3/4 of the female undergraduate population, but for two things: she had bright blue eyes and wore a shirt rather lower than you normally see on such a cold day. She shivered a bit, as if to underline the exposure of bare skin.

Then the odd thing happened. Quite out of the blue, she made some comment about the class she had finished with, and asked me if I was just out of class too. Oblivious to the natural order of things, she was proceeding to engage me in conversation. This is the first time I can remember, in my entire long and storied career at OSU, that someone on campus has actively pursued a social conversation with me that wasn’t directly related to some assignment we had in common. I am not sure why this is so.

I was a bit taken aback, and as I tried to find my footing in this disorienting turn of affairs, I made some feeble conversational efforts in return. She seemed quite nice, cheery and even vaguely interested in my obviously alien schedule of physics classes. We doctored our coffees with sugar and cream together. Unsure of the proper ettiquette, and still unbalanced by the whole situation, I bade her good day and took my leave, feeling like I was missing something important.

Posted 07 February 2006 § ‡ Comments (0)

sleep/awake

Subtle, infuriating signs

tired eyes, slow motion hum

REM stage, a slow blink away

undone tasks are a mountain

and a boulder

and a pillow

and a book

so many reasons to sleep

they keep me awake

with worry.

Posted 01 February 2006 § Prose ‡ Comments (2)

Coffee days

It must make a difference, the caffienne, but I don’t feel it. I don’t even know if I feel the lack, other than the nagging of a habit unsatisfied. These winter days with their early classes and foggy dimness hinge on the routine of warm paper cup, 1 packet raw sugar and an ounce or two of half-and-half. After Electronics (ph 412) and before Paradigms (ph 424, 425, 426), some pivot point is reached between the 3 am bedtime and the 7:30 am alarm and I am levered up out of half-dead sleep deprived bleariness, over the cusp and onto the long slope of tired-but-awake which will leave me with too much momentum to sleep before the wee hours of the morning. Unable to sleep, but tired, ineffective, unfocussed. I hate winter, sometimes.

Posted 25 January 2006 § ‡ Comments (0)