1 cent

It is too often said that having a big heart will come back to bite you in the ass. It's practically a proverb. Having a big heart is a quality that is usually associated with the eternally optimistic, the psychologically positive (positively psychic?) or the naive.

Having a big heart is a quality you can't hide. A big heart makes me smile. A big heart makes me want to hug people in a way that tells them that it is not just a rote gesture but an attempt to establish a real human connection. A kiss on the cheek is a greeting not a meaningless homage to custom.

I have found a handful of people out there with this kind of muscle.

The kind of person that makes you positively light up with more than a passing smile on your face. My mood changes, my mind clears and I hang to their every word in an effort to harness some of the brilliance - emotional or of any other flavor - they exude.

I wish I could say we when I speak of them. To do so, however, would be presumptuous.

Ariadne once gave Theseus a ball of string to escape the labyrinth. What follows can be considered either a fatally flawed metaphor or a great exercise of the mind. Here's to hoping for the latter. People like this should write a book. A how-to manual on how to live life. Even more curious is the fact that some have attempted to do so. Penn and Teller - in their academic studies - once looked into the "life coach" phenomenon. They studied the backgrounds of these life coaches who sold their services to individuals needing that allegorical bear hug in their life. Toadies and humbugs for the most part.

Colloquial translation: In "Be Cool" Travolta discussed the paradox of being cool. If you're cool you can't actually say that you're cool. He also says that if you're important enough, people will call back (shall we forgo the use of voice mail then? Are YOU cool ENOUGH?).

In much the same way, the people who write the happiness variety of books (not to be confused though they might sometimes overlap with self-help books) and preach about the importance of having a this trait forget that their profiteering from their "knowledge" speaks of a fundamental character flaw. My view, this view, is admittedly naive in capitalism. So? . I'm a realist and a utilitarian who leaves room for idealism.

Write a manifesto and try to distribute it to the masses. Leave a manuscript of it in the subway with instructions to read and pass(pay) it forward.

The feeling I get is that of finding a round piece of pre-1988 copper on the ground and wishing for good luck. Our very own brand of felix felicis.

If you have a big heart, whisper your secret to me. I'll keep it.

Jeremiah

The prophet not the rapper (Jeremih).

I'm a catholic born an atheist. Religion was part of my culture back home. EVERYONE was Christian and most everyone was catholic. It was a way of life.

In Mexico, a lot of business is created through the networks we build in our religious life. My godparents are my parents' "conpadres". Co-parents if you will. Though some of our celebrations are charicaturized by pop culture melodramas about not so ugly people, the true celebrations are baptism, communion and confirmation. All the stigma of a cotillion is there, plus God also comes to the party. Convenient no? To party with God's eye on you?

Part of the catholic church is going to Mass. Every Sunday, like clockwork we crowd to the town/community church to listen and pray.

I don't believe in hypnotism. But I do believe in the murmur-like comfort provided by hundreds of voices singing the same off-key notes together. The coordinated shuffling of feet - getting up, sitting down, kneeling... I'm not even listening.

The priest stands before us and 9 out of 10 times rehashes the day's reading in some illogical and nonsensical effort to carve out Aristotelian unity out of nothing.
When he does say something of meaning I listen.

Some nod in agreement. Others, out of a habit grown from years of practice look impassively into nothingness hiding a turmoil that lies just beneath. Some people say amen (not like a soulful one but more like a scared, sacrosanct one). People hold on to their loved ones or close their eyes in a rare moment of brief introspection.

I do all of these things.

For an hour the outside world is locked out by vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows. No cell-phone, no small talk, no earthly ties.

Bliss (even without religion in it).

FeeMientos

I like to answer questions even if they are unasked.
I attach my state of mind to my surroundings. Probably the reason why I need so much light in my room.
I find that lying to myself is the hardest. Doctoring the truth works only when you are unaware. I am painfully self-aware.

I am part of the blogosphere in the world wide web from a disconnected terminal functioning on a wi-fi network. And they say technology is taking over. Ha!

I am fantastic at constructing truths and I hate lying. I love sarcasm though which often leads to an existential quandary.

I obsess with songs for days at a time. I pick them apart choosing particularly well hit notes by the background or the singer. I listen to the lyrics without reading meaning into them. The only meaning I've ever read into was "Sweet Emotion" after Travolta's depiction of the song. The "sweet emotion" was about Tyler's children. That was the sweet emotion.

I'm a 60 year old man trapped in a 20 year old's body. I like sipping on scotch. I like thick wool socks and I wish I could have seen Sinatra live. I'm ordering a humidifier soon.

I despise authors who elevate their opinions to fact. I do it myself all the time but I'm not self-loathing. I attach nota bene's here and there to give myself some degree of scientific ethos.

I like awkward situations.
Like.
This.
One.
.
.
.

I sleep with 5 pillows but rarely use any of them.

I speak 4 languages. I fear that with each passing day that I don't practice I lose precious knowledge. I don't think I could go back to 3, or gasp, 2.

I suppose this is the piece bloggers often write when they start a blog. A description of self meant to describe the person behind the words (note: that sounds a lot more ominous than I meant it to be).
Well this is me - as incomplete a version as I can give.

Enjoy (hopefully).

Finding Pam(Tim)

There are plenty of Kings out there that sing heartfelt lyrics of young adult angst (the logical next step from teen angst).

"I could use somebody"
"I'd rather dance with you than talk to you"
"She was such a good girl to me"

I preach the book of dating. It IS old-fashioned. It involves talking to the other person in a quiet intimate setting that can lead to awkward silences, some discrete flirting with the waiter and a constant pressure to look good. Try looking svelte after a full dinner.

She won't eat too much. You'll order too much. And at the end of the day you might fall into a Vaughnian situation that relates the story of two people who are all the while wondering if they're going to get hopped up enough to get it on.

But a date is a good thing. And there are plenty of books and websites that advocate that the system is flawed. That it's too time consuming. That maybe, just maybe, we're not the right people to choose for ourselves. God, how could we choose on our own? We need a system! A systematic approach to grades people on two dimensions, physical and intellectual. Attach a couple of metaphors and you've made it fool proof. Alternatively, fill in a survey online that uses 32 dimensions of compatibility. THIS IS SCIENCE PEOPLE!

I still like dates. And even if as a guy you are not suave, cool, chic, or any of the other adjectives we guys like to think we need to be before even talking to a girl, you can do it.

The missed encounters section in Craig's list was made for two reasons.The first was for perverts and funny people alike to come up with an escalating situation in which the "missed encounter" scenarios become more and more like a hard-core snuff film.

The second was made for all the missed dates.
Walk up and ask.

Adorable relationships, in my experience, don't develop from a drunken hook-up at a party or a bar. And sure, that sometimes evolves into a late night booty call but Deschanel has written songs about the self-destructive nature of those. And a late night booty call is a relationship but one that inevitably leads to feelings that are very much one-sided. This is not the way to get into a guy's heart (for the most part).

Good luck exploring the infinite abyss looking for Pam(Tim).

The exception to the rule

All of my life I've had girlfriends. The friends who are girls variety. The other kind I wont elaborate on, not for now now at least. As such, I am a womanizer in a different sense than your average womanizer is.

I don't expect myself to grow up to be a 50 year old who knows how to sweet talk 20somethings whispering sweet nothings.

Some say I'm an expert in the younger woman, maybe that's because I've been dating them for over 40 years. Actually, it's merely because I like to think I've been emotionally intimate with many of them over the last decade of my life. An overstatement for sure, but one that carries a certain level of validity so bear with me.

Women like to believe that they are the exception to the rule. No matter how cynical they may seem or act or be they harbor this underlying hope/desire of finding the sweet handsomely rugged/clean cut man who i everything they want him to be. We (men) can and do easily prey on this sentiment.

A friend of mine once called me a player with feelings.

A word of caution. I am a big fan of making broad sweeping statements*. They have in my experience proven to be fairly accurate in dealing with women of the northern hemisphere. My research is entirely empirical and completely biased. This is me having facts and deriving theories and not the other way around. Though my methods might not be as Socratic (or nonexistent) like the Nobel committee, there is a validity to my thoughts (mostly provided my own self-importance).

The truth is that too often Ill have girls come to me and ask me to tell them the "truth" and though Hollywood and the NYT Best selling writing sluts both warn them against the GUY mentality they refuse to believe in it. The proportion of men out there who enjoy sipping on wine, eating french cheeses, talking about their feelings and or going shopping is higher than you think. EVERY GUY can be/is that. But you don't get that on the first date or two or three.

You also shouldn't have sex with us on the first date. If you're worried about coming across as a prude then you're probably not with the right guy. NO matter how adorable or cute or gentlemanly he is.

We love the chase. And the chase should be carefully prolonged carefully, without sending mixed signals or being a frigid bitch. It's a science not an art form merely because we are simple minded beings us humans. My type especially so.

It's not what you wear, it's who you are. Every guy (read most) will be immediately attracted to the tight little black dress that walks into a party with peroxide hair, catwalk make up and mile long legs perfectly paired with black suede booties. Every guy will draw a mental picture in his mind, label her as impossibly out of his league and never look at her again or they will see her as a challenge worth pursuing for the night. No one ever giving a thought to her personality.

My theory is simple. Every human interaction is driven by attraction. When the interaction happens between a guy and a girl, 9/.10 times a guy will only start talking to a girl if he finds her attractive in some way or another.

News flash: WE CANT SEE PERSONALITIES. you might have a great personality but it's up to you to show that once you're past the whole "I look so hot and he looks so cute" stage. It'd be simpler if we also had a picto-graphic representation of everything other than our body on our person. A sort of flow chart of ourselves.

I am in love with personalities but I only find those until I get past the physical stuff. And I'm particularly good at that. Most of my kinsmEn are not.

This is already far too long. So I'll stop with this: we are most often the rule. The average situation is the rule in this life. We can't all be second quartile. But keep hope close to your heart.

From doorman to doorman

I had three dinners tonight. Children around the world went hungry.

The first was a delightfully trendy place where a college student on a date fits in with the budding impresario trying to impress his birdie date with cold sake. It was marvelous. The sushi was fresh and surgically removed from large blocks of lurid sea monsters. The jazz was out of place but very, shall we say contemporary?

Then a small indian BYOB - Bartuchi's. We only had nan. Stacks of cheese/onion/garlic filled. They were out of the fluffy kind :(.

And then we went to Big Nick's. A menu in the form of a booklet with anything imaginable. I had a burger.

What is the point you might wonder...Diego doesn't bother with the banal happenings of day to day life. What I have is a comment on the structure of NY society.

It's the day before Thanksgiving and it might just be that most of use don't have work tomorrow or it might be that we are trying to dull our senses in preparation of the quality family time we'll be enjoying tomorrow. The bars are packed so we barhop from sodomizing donkeys to old couples bars sometimes straying into a grocery store for a snack or water.

Like at Penn, the replicating migration to warmer and better climates (cheaper and better mood/setting/stools/free stuff like popcorn) happens and we fly (walk) in V (a line).
We never tire.
We rally!
And so does the city that doesn't sleep.

Everyone likes to act like they're older. We'll see how life goes and if we remember this in retrospect.

Inflammatory Journalism :)

Dear Journalists:

It would be far too easy for me to come across as some conservative zealot who touts the value added by big brother.

I could claim to be outraged (which I am) at the considerable lack of moral fiber you oft display in an effort to push paper. I heard you're a dying industry.

No comments were received from the industry at the time this story was published.

I could pretend, in mock disbelief, to wonder what society has come to. I won't.
I could present two sides of an argument seemingly appropriate to the subject at hand. I won't.

As I continue to write in this blog, this journal of thoughts of mine, the theme grabs shape. My writing has the same Brownian nature that the Da Vinci code had. The same style that most internet outlets now follow. Short paragraphs make the reader feel smart.

A quick, immediate sense of action.
Do.
You.
Feel.
It?

This inflammatory journalism sometimes has its uses. How else would we have been prepared for Y2K? Without the sudoku/crossword combo what would fill my idle mornings? Or what about the economic recovery? Everyone knows it's V-shaped. Right?

Nothing will change. I'm not trying to change that. I'm trying to change the world.

But who could say that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxis7Y1ikIQ&feature=player_embedded is not good inflammatory journalism? That's rhetorical.

I am not naive...I think. I am a cynic and a student of human behavior. Dear Journalists, try to make a concerted effort to report what matters, not human tragedy but humans. Your profession can be extremely dignified, you only have to try.

The responsible Greek.

I'm a Mexican citizen studying in a U.S. university.
And I'm Greek.

The fraternal bond of days of yore is strong in me. Or if I'm to be "real" I'd say that my organization which was founded in 1850 to provide a forum for free speech and radical ideas now provides a safe haven. A brotherhood.

Sure, you can go ahead and read the anthropological studies of Peggy Reeves but let's skip that for a second. Let's get a first hand account on being a responsible Greek.

The media enjoys vilifying the Greeks. It's true, we mess up. A lot. But I happen to believe that a lot of where that comes from is not the fact that people in Greek organizations are inherently evil or mess up on a more regular basis. My best friends, girls and guys are all Greek. It's their association that makes them a bigger target. Because we are part of something larger than ourselves, we can be targeted as something bigger than ourselves.

A brother charged with rape is immediately affected, both in reputation and state of mind. A brother charged with rape, according to the way the media likes to write about it, is also representative of a raping fraternity. A dirty organization with a predisposition for sexual violence. And this is only ALLEGED rape. Isn't our justice system based on the idea: innocent until proven guilty?

If an unsuspecting John Doe commits the rape then it makes it onto the paper for a couple of days and nothing else is said about it. Why? because this one individual had no easily discernible ties?

Are we being punished for believing in a fraternal community. A family away from home? Targeted.

But we are not the victims. Not only the victim at least. We are proactive about it, we start 1 in 4 organizations (a group that speaks and educates on sexual violence), we hold philanthropy events for worthy causes. We volunteer as fraternities in mentorship programs and we bring our fair share of school spirit to sporting events.

I, like a lot of Greeks, wear my letters proudly.

Let's simply talk about everything that happens and value its relevance based on the facts and not on the associations - however tangential they may be.

C.A.Bl

It is often the case that when guys speak of girls (and I suppose I know the converse is true, when girls speak of guys) that names fade and characteristic traits dominate.

Yes I could speak of Jocelyn or Miriam or Pam. But it's easier to talk about "girl" said with a meaningful look on my face or "summer girl" or "new girl" or "freshman girl" (and the obvious sophomore, junior and senior girl). I have even heard my friends, in a bout of creative thought come up with a system. The initial of the girl's name followed by an animal.

Thus such beauties/monstrosities like "crabbit", "rsnake" and "kdog" have been born.

It makes us laugh and it makes it easier to talk about all things "bros" will talk about without attaching a real person to the story.

I know I'm using a lot of quotation marks.

Yes. Guys do talk just like girls do. Yes, there are always details involved.
This I do not mind.

Today however I tried using my brand of nicknames on a girl who also happens to be a friend. Someone real.

It's funny to think some people deserve their real name and some don't. And I thought I didn't judge.

On the Daily Pennsylvanian

Thank God for America (the U.S. not the continent) and its freedom of speech. This is how we get a student newspaper leveraging personal grief regarding a student suicide (19 going on 20) and the rape accusation of another fratty bro.

It will make it to the front page every day this week.

The first reflects the emotional morbosity that plagues those around me. I suffer it too but I go to great pains to diguise it. It is inconsiderate and reprehensible for a reporter to attend a grief counseling session to comment on the "visibly disturbed" nature of his friends and family. Oh thank God!!!!! I was soooo concerned for them. The newspaper is a good way of finding out that they're "dealing with it".

There is something blatantly presumptuous in college extracurriculars (read pre-professional wannabe clubs and/or the student newspapers/magazines/associations) that think too highly of themselves. This proves my point. There are facts that need reporting. Penn has a counseling service. GOOD. Penn is stressful. GOOD. Preying on human emotion. Questionable.

I might be wrong. After all, U.S. citizens pride themselves on their liberties and freedom of press though they're not at the top of the list. Their right next to Croatia. Read into that what you will.

It bothers me is all.

Let's talk about the rape allegation. Sure, emphasize the fact that it happened at a fraternity. Emphasize the Greek letters. Blame the Greeks. It's an easy cliche right? After all you are predominantly non-Greek and you have attempted to get a statement from the president of the fraternity. Never mind that you are predominantly not Greek and predominantly biased against the organization. Maybe it's simply because you find too many of your papers strewn across classroom floors (missing the crossword) or maybe it's because your "first-hand reports" which you flaunt around as coming from greater powers to be are actually simple accounts of what happened by your drunk correspondents who were there to party. A C.I. is not official when the comment you got from an anonymous tipster was the result of a mass text.

That girl doing a three-point stance on the dance floor with hair sticking to her neck in a hot sweaty mess is tomorrow's Cronkite.

I could be wrong. It seems to easy to prey on the faults rather than emphasize the positives.

Wit rather than banter my friends.

Blogging as a journal

It's easy to keep a public blog private. And I dont have to try.
Why is it that keeping myself private is not quite as easy.

A friend of mine - a real friend of mine - once told me I trust people with details that are beautifully disguised as the truth. I love incomplete truths. Playing on peoples emotions and manipulating their behaviors is part of my empirical and not-so-serious-but-I-kind-of-mean-it study of human relations.

The TV show Dexter claims that it is very hard to know people. When we introduce ourselves to someone all they know about us is what they see (under the whole O'Brien perspective of the world that "truth" is relative and for the most part in the eye of the beholder) and what we choose to show them. How then does one truly know anyone?

For me it is simple. I use boxes. PI have foudn that all people can be defined by a few trademark behavior that are more cyclical than history is. And people think I'm good at reading them. It's too easy because it might be the hollywood mentality or the psychology behind books that attempt at defining the all important "RELATIONSHIP" as this mystical bit of pseudo-science that only the author can demistify. I'm telling them the counterpart to "Skinny Bitch" or "he's just not that into you". Of course I come across as sagely and wise.

This suits me.

The truth? I often wonder how, despite the many faces I feel like I can wear people invariably seem to have the same high opinion of me. I feel like a poser in a world where everyone sees me as genuine. This prompts em to wonder: is the poser simply the real me? Is the poser someone candid and honest? Or have I just been consumed and what I though was my full mind is only one side of the coin and I'm equally as blind to the other side as other people are?

I'm terribly self-aware. This makes lying to myself an art form. And I'm good but it's difficult to run from the truth sitting in your own head. I've heard denial is powerful. I think I'm stronger.

So here's to you, dear diary.

Not being a package.

Invariably a young writer is told to write about what he knows best. Unfortunately I am not a writer and with every passing day the things I do are less and less easily excused based on the idea that I am "young". Let's pretend for a second.

When the young writer, myself, writes, the first and second and sometimes third draft always sound preachy. It becomes very easy for me to write from a pulpit that only I stand on. I'm like a priest in mass except I have no one in the congregation. The experience is akin to talking to oneself, even better and my personal favorite is when I bet on something with myself. Self-preservation at its finest.

I was told to write about myself. The directive did not come from a teacher, or my parents or some writing mentor. My novel will never come though I've considered exploring the male-female relationship. Singular. I am a firm believer that people are more cyclical than history and I want to write something real. Not a half-veiled truth disguised as a self-help group but the absurdity of human behavior. Empirical of course. It is too easy in the setting I find myself in: a social experiment.

Three paragraphs in and I'm still avoiding the subject. I will admit to hating asking for help. It makes me vulnerable, human even. It makes the person I am have a different ethos. I'm no longer the big guy always cracking jokes and making people smile but I'm the sick, brooding friend who must be "handled with care". The way you are asked "How are you" changes from a passing and rote statement to a heartfelt sentiment complete with eyes ready to tear up for you. The dynamics have changed and now whenever I'm out they'll be on the lookout for my mood, for my drink, for my interactions. God forbid I flirt with a girl and let my self-esteem ride on just that.

The truth is that what would help the most is the one thing they can't bring themselves to do. I don't need someone to tell me things will be ok. They will, I know, the alternative exists on a long enough timeline but is not an alternative. I need my friends to act normal. To treat me the same way they treated me before when fun and happy D was always kickin' it.

I'm not confrontational though. I could never tell them anything. So instead I'm relegated to writing about this on a blog as if I were a kid full of teenage angst. And that's not even an excuse anymore.

I wish I was off doing greater things, grander things. I want to change the world. If only I knew how.