In Monochrome

This is a disappointing, albeit wide-spread indicator that the prospects of financing your college education are getting more morose with each passing school year.

I disagree with some of the  fantastical enterprises many mobile developers are adding or saddling themselves up to these days. Not only do almost 90 percent of cellphones have built in mp3 players and digital, 3 megapixel cameras, but some are going touch screen, a la Apple’s IPhone. But I have one constipated problem, well two problems. I don’t use an IPhone( so any contributions to this wish-list of mine would be grateful and probably end with me naming my first born after you). But my second issue is that not all digital mobile camera phones are created equal. I feel that most developers slap camera-capabilities in last minute, or half ass.

My beef in question is with my Blackberry Curve. I love her. I really,really do. But the camera feature to me is unnecessary. I mean, i think the designers added this feature in just to fulfill some niche market( if everyone is jumping off a bridge, why not us?). I use the camera aspect of my phone sparingly, I mean when I really want to have a picture of someone or something, and nothing around me is identifiable to a camera. I recently signed up to Pikchur.com, which is in essense a website you can access via the internet or mobilely that allows you to upload pictures to all of your Social networking Persona’s instantly. Sounds like a mouthful, but its a practical and cool idea. 

So imagine my reviled excitement when I snapped off a few pictures to demonstrate this cool website, only to find that my 2 megapixel BlackBerry’s images are liken to a 200 pixel portrati. My phone can’t even reproduce reality correctly. I mean,sure the image is fine and everything,but I have friends who mobile camera phones eat my Blackberry for lunch( literarly).

But I’m unfazed by my handheld blacksheep in a darkhorse’s facade. I’ll continue to use the both the website and my phone’s half-attempt at a decent camera, until either I give in or until the Blackberry Bold comes out.

My ordeal this month has been nothing short of Biblical. I mean, I should have a Chapter written up in the Bible titled “The Book of Terr”, the first verse called “Orthodontal Travails”.  

August has been a humbling experience for me, from a pain standing point. I’ve always revelled in the commodity that is my male ego that I can handle any sort of physical pain dealt onto my body. I use to play both high school and college football, I’ve seen the worse and felt the worse. But, something about my teeth, about the sound of a powerdrill or the unsavoring sight of a needle, that causes spasmodic doubts to run through me. I like the Dentist’s chair as the Pillory of Krypton. I mean, all and all, I will remember August 2008 as being the worst month on record for me( even worse than June 2004, May 2001, and June 1994).

Things are becoming a bit overwhelmed here at work( and I was informed that August was a slow month—from an advertisement/editing standpoint). Nevertheless, I find myself constantly in the everflow of work, social networking, editing, and though one would assume this entry would conclude with me saying something cliched about “needing a break” or witty, I emjoy the haphazardness of my established vocation.

The upcoming calendar doesn’t broker any relief either, nor does the month of September( which finds me traveling almost every weekend), but then again when did my Septembers EVER offer me a reprieve from relaxation?

On another topic, I will try not to name drop or go into gleeful detail over my employer or what it is we do here in Massachusetts, but when something of noted importance does present itself at my desk I will be sure to give it its due process.

A friend shared his thoughts this weekend on a dinner he had with another friend of mine. In his explanation of that dinner, he went into length on how physically “changed” she had looked. Now, many of us know of her previous battles with her self image, namely her weight, and thought that she had found inner piece by managing her diet through working out and changing her status from omnivore to vegan.

Well,I’ve seen this friend in question recently, and she has lost a large amount of weight, a poundage some would attribute to gains in working out and modest dieting. But, others feel that she has fallen off the vegan diet and back into her subconscious mold of anorexia. In fact, the consensus among those who know her feel she is using her vegan diet as a cover for her now growing anorexia.

Its a scary thing when people presumpose one thing, but in actuality are living a farce onto themselves. But after considering time spent with her, and the ruminations of others, there is no doubt that the line between lifestyle and self-acrominy is becoming blurred. I hope that the lure of improving one’s self image hasn’t been pushed aside for the false aspirations of idealized appearance. I worry about my friend( more so at a health and wellness point of view, than image conscious), but the root of this psychology she is currently living in isn’t worth the added stress.

At this point tonight I can not say whether or not we, as friends, will passively confront her about her weight loss or her pathos of veganism, or continue to watch this cliche-ridden train wreck( for she has rode upon this train before in the past). But denial, on either our front or hers, will not solve this calamity.

So Monica, unbeknownst to me, had one of my short stories sent to this prestigious editing firm in Boston; you know, so some Emerson Grad critique it for poor spelling, grammar and utter literary worthiness.

The other day I recieved the “edited” version of my story in my inbox.It wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought( as my imagination has the tendency to get away from me), but it did remind me of the varying degrees of prespective and theme.

So, without getting into how many comments or red-lined edits were left for me to scratch my head over, I will say that the opinions left were worthy of consideration.

I guess I’ve been spoiled by having friends and acquaintances read my stories;saving me from the harsh realities of criticism. But again, without divulging what was written in that email, I am grateful for Monica’s reasonable message: Focus on your writing more.

its roughly 3:41am right now in Massachusetts, and I am following the excruciating wont I have been accustomed to doing for the past five days by waking up at 3 or so in the morning to take a pain reliever for my soon to be extracted tooth(Tuesday,12:30…mark your calendars).

I will admit that this entry( and perhaps many others soon to follow) do not coincide with the regular theme of this blog-space, but given the enormity of my situation—and the thoughts now possessive of my mind—I deem it worthy a note. I do not like Dentist’s, I do not like them fried green eggs and ham..
But,I marvel over how, in today’s regime of health and wellness, one can find ailment for his oral malady—not to mention any other medical excursion put to him.


I’m going to have a root canal done, and thoughit sounds painful, I find it a vindicating to what my mouth is going through at the moment. A sort “TAKE THAT” to a pesky nerve in my pesky tooth. I never fathom having my wisdom teeth removed weeks earlier would reveal this orange clockwork of errors in my tooth-alignment. But, perhaps I’m being too hard on myself, I mean, I am grateful to have a working plan in process next week to finally fix this issue. Most do not have this luxury( and when allowed to remain on this subject long enough, I pity them. Pain is something no person, animal or three formed organism should have to endure).

I’ll ride it out today, and then tomorrow, and the day after that—at which point I’ll drive into East Longmeadow, and plunk myself down for thirty minutes of Novocaine good times. Did I mention that the sound of drilling through enamel( lets say,MY enamel) really rubs me? I didn’t? Well,it does. I wish I would listen to my ipod or opt for anesthesia, but that would seem a cop out. I’ve dealt with this annoying pain for five days now( at times being unable to eat or sleep until the pain relievers took root), I think I should be awake to its final demise. I should be able to sing its swan-song as its extracted, cleaned, and crowned. I should be able to revel in this; having been the recipient of my tooth’s angst and discomfiture toward me for a week.

I will.