From the editors desk:

"Stay away from pleated pants man. keep it flat front."
-Garrett Day


Sometimes a friend lends a thought, intended casually, that turns out to be dripping with conviction. I've known Garrett to speak a prophetic word on occasion and this instance is no exception. The pleated pant has marred the face of casual fashion, far too long, having not been rebuked so poignantly until now. What was the line of reasoning that ever justified pinning the top of one's pants into what looks like an origami project gone terribly wrong? Maybe it was thought to make one's pants more streamline and aerodynamic, lest we forget that our pants are not paper airplanes.

Place a pair of flat front chinos next to a pair of pleated and try not suffer an aneurysm from stupefaction. It takes a willful suspension of everything one knows in regards to what's aesthetically pleasing, to accept the form of a pleated front. There is just too much going on, especially in the midsection region (eh hmm), that inevitably draws one's eyes to gaze and wonder. Let the Milky Way galaxy instill such questions of origin in the minds of men and let pants be pants!

"I just swallowed a fly!"

Top 5 reasons I'm not panicking about being completely oblivious as to what Plato was getting at in the first five pages of the Republic today.

1. I haven't heard Plato referenced once in this upcoming election but Sarah Palin's credibility as a hockey mom has.

2. Socratic method would suggest that I should respond with a series of questions anyway. A confused look with do just fine.

3. I've only got a year and a half of teenage angst and indifference left in me so why am I caring about politics yet anyway?

4. I have wikipedia. The Greeks didn't.

5. I'm becoming increasingly good at voicing my opinion with an air of authority on topics I have no idea about. "wall street's strugglin again? ...supply and demand eh?"

"Now class let's talk about syntax. Prepare to be incredibly bored out of your head for the next hour!"

(This is a slightly revised version from the original post about a week ago. I touched up some things before handing it in.)

The following is a recent essay I wrote for my college writing 1.0 class and a testament as to why my academic scholarship remains in peril. We were asked to recreate a drama that occurred with us since moving to the city and so I resolved to hide behind humor as usual. The paper derives and drew inspiration from the "ba da dah dat dah" double cheeseburger blog from June which is why I felt compelled to post it. You will even note that I stole a few choice phrases at the end of this paper from the June one so I am aware of the self-plagiarism at work but they're my words so screw it...

I woke up in the middle of the night, soaking in a cold sweat. I was breathing heavily and, although I couldn’t remember, felt like I had just woke from a mentally strenuous dream. My confusion was disrupted, only for a moment, as my stomach gave out a light growl. Cautiously ignoring it, I looked at my phone. The clock said 2:00 am and I nervously realized I had only been sleeping for about two hours. This was to my grim surprise as I had been proud, this night, of my timely accomplishment of getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I gained my bearings atop my bunk in my bedroom and my eyes slowly dilated, adjusting to the darkness. Everything was still and in its place, with mounds of clothes and belongings strewn across the floor, but the familiar ambient noise of the city was replaced with a hollow silence. The absence felt foreign.

Sitting up, I started to realize that, indeed, something was not right. The ever-present, college-sized pit of hunger that typically makes residence in my stomach (the one I had unwittingly ignored only a moment ago) seemed to have been replaced with a sense of anxiety too intangible to pinpoint. I was now breaking a hot sweat.

“Not again,” I said to myself, unsure if I had actually spoken aloud. Then, as if provoked by my objection, my body responded with a preemptive attack, clinching my stomach organs as I doubled over into a withdrawal-like episode. Biting my lip in physical response, I mentally braced myself in anticipatory self-defense for what was to come.

“I will not suffer you tonight, ye beast!” My exclaim broke the night’s silence like the crack of a whip.

From this point, what ensues takes on an almost poetic-like clash of two wills, fated for battle in the New York City night. One can picture a scene tantamount to Jacob wrestling his angel but in my instance there is only a demon (Considering that none of my roommates woke up, further paves the way for an argument of mystic aura at work). My stomach made the first move.

“Give up now Josh and I might let you retain a little dignity before this is over,” it said, unfittingly churning a bit of stomach acid in my innards.

“Do you realize I have an English paper due in the morning? Why tonight?” I responded, unleashing a bitter right hook to my lower abdomen with unmerciful determination. “Take that, you lame excuse for a digestive organ!”

“Lame excuse? This coming from the shell of a man, of who’s girl-like appetite I have been so privileged to employ these last three weeks?” I felt a sharp jab to my pancreas, startled as I wasn’t sure what was more unsettling: the jab to said organ, or that I now knew where my pancreas was by way of active pain receptors. “We must go get one now!” Stomach pressed.

“I will not let that filth into my body.” A vision flashed in my mind, projecting a scene of me, spaced out and delirious by the end of my last bout of indulgence. This had been during a momentary suspension of will power, resulting in the victimization of my digestive system and a testimony of the desperation of a college eating habit. I swung my left elbow, landing another punishing hit to my incessant foe.

This time I felt the reprisal while being educated on just how close the stomach, when personified, actually is to the male reproductive system.

“You exaggerate this all too much. I’m asking only with intent to take the edge off. I know you feel it too and we could both benefit,” my gastronomical assailant adjured.

I reacted once again, enacting what would have looked like a self-performed Heimlich maneuver but this time with a feint sense of doubt permeating my conscious. Perhaps a little taste wouldn’t hurt and in the end it could help me feel better rested come morning. My considerations were interrupted by a wafting smell of grease and frying oil. That cheat! He’d called in reinforcements from the smelling receptors in the brain to further tantalize my resolve, and it was starting to work. But no, I would stand my ground.

And oh how I did, for the better part of another thirty seconds, amid a valiant exchange of blows, before I ashamedly caved in to temptation and a chronic longing for synthetic, flavor-injected beef and cheese, sandwiched between two paper-thin buns.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting outside the nearest McDonalds at 2:30 am, enraptured in a taste induced, euphoric coma of flavor and delight. Stomach and I are throwing back old stories of the good old days when mom would cook us dinner each night and life was simpler. Stomach wins once again and I’m too belligerent with satisfaction to even care. This is the portrait of a man broken, and a recurring struggle in my life, of which I will one day overcome. Until then, however, let me introduce you to the insidiously irresistible McDonald’s double cheeseburger. Enjoy it and be merry.

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Protein deficiency is a serious cause of ill health and death in developing countries.... Protein deficiency plays a part in the disease kwashiorkor.... Protein deficiency can lead to reduced intelligence or mental retardation.
-Wikipedia


As if muscular atrophy wasn't already a pressing enough issue in my life (due to my scholarly and workload attributed restrictions on athletics), I now find my self coming to terms with the realities of having to feed my self on a daily basis, the ensuing weight loss, and the lingering question of what "kwashiorkor" is. The result to date, is a new appreciation for all things edible: Flour, water, and baking powder laid out on a frying pan suddenly entices the pallet like sirloin on the grill. Coffee is now an official food group, ibuprofen is an appetizer, and the communion plate at church looks disturbingly more like an hors d'oeuvres platter each week. Thank high heavens for peanut butter and Cliff Bars.

Quest of late:

-find the cash cab

-find/capture/synthesize/kill, and then eat, meat.

... and an umbrella. not to eat but just to have, it's wet here.

Eeezee Streeet

So never worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
-Gospel of Mathew


An interesting experience often occurs when I'm at church. Amidst the usual pressures and, now school induced, anxiety from the trivially hectic American life I lead, I receive a dose of spiritual valium to the brain and find myself in a sensational moment of repose. The problems that leach onto the recesses of my mind are neutralized and I receive a mental point of clarity, if only for a little while. My schedule instantly seems less pressing, school appears as the exaggeration it really is, and my anxieties are clarified as just a waste of increased blood pressure. It's a process that's endorsed even by secular psychology: that of putting your life, and its affairs, in perspective. A good church service for me (most often the time of worship), or even sometimes a good lecture, or a good book, is what facilitates this process in my own life. The problem is that I think I sometimes misinterpret these feelings to a self-destructive, rather than self-furthering, level:

If I accept that tomorrow will take care of itself and shrug off whatever matter might have me anxious, then I tell myself that investing my nerves in anything other than short term is a vain pursuit. After all God knows my problems and they aren't too big for him, and so begins a downward spiral. Why worry? Ok I won't worry. Well what makes me worry? School makes me worry. Homework makes me worry. I shall expose both for what they really are. Vanities says the preacher! I will go get some Chinese instead of working on this paper and tomorrow can worry about itself. Yes, the divine hand will write my paper: that is what faith is.

...or not. Vexed, am I. More on this in the future.